Bloomberg Law reports:
Pilfered snapshots of patients baring their bodies ahead of life-saving cancer operations and plastic surgeries are unexpectedly landing in the vast landscape of the public internet after cyberattacks, as hackers seek new ways to turn a profit.
Campaigns to extort victims during ransomware attacks against health-care providers are evolving, according to lawsuits and Bloomberg Law interviews with cybersecurity attorneys and threat researchers. No longer satisfied with targeting hospitals and clinics alone, cyber criminals are directly targeting patients, demanding payments as modest as $50 to prevent the publication of intimate photos and sale of other sensitive medical records on the dark web.
Victims reeling from direct medical privacy extortion launched a litany of proposed class actions and individual lawsuits against their physicians. Health-care providers are accused of failing to safeguard their patients’ most sensitive data and inadequately addressing the aftermath of security breaches.
Read more at Bloomberg Law.
