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Posted on 02/20/2008 5:56:36 PM PST by BGHater
Foreign hackers, primarily from Russia and China, are increasingly seeking to steal Americans’ health care records, according to a Department of Homeland Security analyst.
Mark Walker, who works in DHS’ Critical Infrastructure Protection Division, told a workshop audience at the National Institute of Standards and Technology that the hackers’ primary motive seems to be espionage.
“They’ve been focused on the [Department of Defense] – the military – but now are spreading out into the health care private sector,” Walker said.
Early in 2007, a virus was placed on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, he said, and in April a Military Health System server holding Tricare records was hacked.
Walker said the hackers are seeking to exfiltrate health care data. “We don’t know why,” he added. “We want to know why.” At the same time, he said, it’s clear that “medical information can be used against us from a national security standpoint.”
Any health problems among the nation’s leaders would be of interest to potential enemies, he said.
DHS is increasing its analysis staff to monitor threats in several industries, including health care, and will be issuing more alerts about cyberthreats to health care data, he said.
Walker urged the audience to report data breaches to the authorities. Only the Veterans Affairs Department consistently reports health data breaches, he said. As a result, he added, “our understanding of the cyberthreat to health and human services is vague at this point.”
DHS wants to build a database of health information system intrusions so it can better analyze the threats and develop countermeasures, Walker said.
He said poor security practices among those who use health information systems and disgruntled employees are as much of a threat as cyber intruders.
Maybe its not about national security, maybe its mafia, and maybe there is a scam involved.
By the way, its not that hard to get medical data. Most medical records go offshore for transcription. They’ve already had cases of foreign transcribers using the records for unauthorized purposes. I don’t think it happens a lot, but the fact remains they do go offshore.
“We don’t know why,” he added. “We want to know why.”
Sell it to American insurance cos. to cancel policies and otherwise maximize profits, maybe.
When you read about Obama and Clinton wanting to spend $10 billion of our money for “digitization of medical records” this is a sign they are acting as puppets of the insurers.
Dude, I’m like so dead.
Maybe it's just the insurance companies trying to find out who to drop from coverage. They certainly have tried other ways.
It’s about everything that they can get.
Gotta love the irony here.
If you get the medical record, you can do just about whatever you want with that person.
You have the social security number, address, methods of payment, medical diagnosis(s), next of kin, etc. With that you can do, in certain cases, a blackmail operation; an identity theft for money; if they die, you know it and you can do a full identity theft; you can sell their insurance data to someone so that they can go get treatment based on that identity. Lots of stuff!
Blackmail being engineered.
I’m still trying to figure out why there isn’t a law prohibiting the transfer of sensitive personal information outside of the country since I believe the EU has laws concerning that already. It would seem to be a win-win for politicians, not only because it has legitimate national security reasons but would help keep IT work in the US.
Are they taking Hillary’s universal health care literally?
Does anybody have info on how Real ID could play into this?
There is no US jurisdiction over those contract IT firms who would “decide” to sell your personal information.
Years ago, I spoke directly with a Legislator about this potential problem and he went into a daze out of incomprehensibility - he didn't have a clue this could happen.
How "secure" do they think India is? or what incentive have they or anyone else to protect the information entrusted them from the other side of the earth?
See #14 - I questioned that years ago.
Lawmakers work far behind the curve of logic..
Your comment about digitizing medical records is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve read on FR and I’ve read quite a few ridiciulous comments. Seriously.
I read another post on here (FR) that Google is going to store health care records.
Nothing to see here!
“Your comment about digitizing medical records is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve read on FR and I’ve read quite a few ridiciulous comments. Seriously.”
Seriously, your comment shows overstatement. Truth is an uncomfortable thing, ‘natch.
Whatever you say. It’s a big conspiracy by the ins cos. You’re right!
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