In Finland, hackers have gained access to the medical records of patients in psychotherapy centers and are demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency, otherwise threatening to publish the information in the public domain.
The hackers gained access to the medical data of 40,000 patients at Vastaamo psychotherapy centers. The attackers exploited a security breach that appeared as a result of a hack in 2018, but which was not previously known. The hackers began contacting patients whose data had been compromised and sending them messages with the following content:
“Your data from psychotherapy sessions will be published if you do not pay me € 500 in cryptocurrency within 48 hours.”
The Vastaamo hack is one of the largest cryptocurrency ransom attacks on a medical facility. Attackers have already published over 300 case histories on the darknet and threatened to release more data if patients do not pay the ransom. A massive data breach led to the firing of Vastaamo CEO Ville Tapio.
The hackers are part of an organized group that regularly steals data for ransom. The delay between the 2018 security breach and the blackmail attempts that began on October 21, 2020 is attributed to the “heavy workload” of the hackers and the fact that it took the group a long time to decipher the Finnish documents and understand their value.
Cybersecurity companies have joined forces with blockchain analytics providers to track down and identify hackers. Recall that in the spring, the largest network of private hospitals in Europe was attacked by a ransomware virus. In addition, hackers attacked the information system of a hospital in the United States, demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency.
