The FBI is investigating a $10 million ransom demand by a hacker or hackers who say they have stolen nearly 8.3 million patient records from a Virginia government Web site that tracks prescription drug abuse, an FBI official confirmed Wednesday.
The state police in Virginia are also investigating the possible breach of confidential records.
“This is a crime and it is being treated that way,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Wednesday. The FBI official said the Virginia Information Technologies Agency VITA referred the case to the FBI last week, asking for help.
Asked whether people’s personal information is secure, the official said he couldn’t say. “I really can’t make a declarative statement as to whether anyone’s information is in jeopardy at this point,” the official said.
The rogue government-transparency Web site WikiLeaks on Sunday put up a message that it said was posted Thursday on the front page of the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program’s Web site.
“ATTENTION VIRGINIA,” the message read in part. “I have your [expletive] In my possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh.
“For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password. You have 7 days to decide. If by the end of 7 days, you decide not to pony up, I’ll go ahead and put this baby out on the market and accept the highest bid.”
FBI Probes Hacker’s $10 Million Ransom Demand for Stolen Virginia Medical Records – FOXNews.com — This is rich.
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HAR! and the government wants everyone’s medical records computerized ASAP.
Jerks like this should be publicly executed.
This guy is so going to get nailed. He thinks he is so smart…ha, I bet some hackers hack his ass just to prove the point.
That is $1.20 per name. I think you can get stolen credit card numbers for less. This guy is nuts if he thinks he can get $10m for 8.3m names.
It won’t matter where he lives, the FBI is going to get him and he WILL do a good stretch.
Stoopid hooman! You should have just sold it on the open market instead of giving the FBI the bird. If anyone else knows what you did you are frakked. You should head for Mexico now.
It’s almost always their own egos (and big mouths) that get guys like this caught. I hope they catch him quickly and maybe give him a little of the Mitnick treatment.