The recent ransomware attack on a Maryland hospital chain points up the less-than-state-of-the-art security status of many heath care data systems. Cyberthieves have noticed.

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Cybercrooks turn away from banks. Your health records are far juicier
Why break into Fort Knox when you can get a data treasure trove from hospital?
20 Apr 2016 at 14:47, John Leyden

Cybercrooks are switching up targets moving away from retail and financial services onto healthcare and government last year, according to figures from IBM’s security business.

Retail drops out of top five most attacked sector while financial targets dropped from #1 to #3 in IBM X-Force’s 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index. The new highest volume breaches in 2015 centered on healthcare (most attacked), manufacturing (second place), government (fourth) and transportation. Healthcare’s prominence as a target for attacks is essentially because cybercrooks have tuned into ways of making money from stolen healthcare data, making health insurance firms, clinics and hospitals an increasingly attractive target.

“Five of the eight largest healthcare security breaches since the beginning of 2010—those with more than one million records reportedly compromised—took place during the first six months of 2015,” IBM X-Force researchers explain. “In fact, over 100 million healthcare records were reportedly compromised in 2015.”

“Packed with a wealth of exploitable information, electronic health records fetch a high price on the black market. They typically contain credit card data, email addresses, social security numbers, employment information and medical history records—much of which will remain valid for years, if not decades. Cyber thieves are using that data to launch spear phishing attacks, commit fraud and steal medical identities.”

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/20/cybercrooks_switching_targets/