US Companies Can't Protect Citizens? Chinese Hackers Steal 4.5 Million Patients Info

Christian Post ^ | 08/20/2014 | BY SAMUEL SMITH

[SeekAndFind]

One of America's largest hospital chains is the latest to fall victim to a group of sophisticated Chinese hackers who compromised 4.5 million patients' data including social security numbers in April and June. The cyber attack is the largest ever reported by a U.S. health care company and should serve as a warning to get more private companies to take their cyber protection more seriously.

"Many companies are instituting anti-malware controls to detect malware prior to infection," said Kroll Cyber Investigations Managing Director Timothy P. Ryan in an email interview with The Christian Post. "Other companies are incorporating more robust threat intelligence into their defensive systems. Still other companies are combining these actions with trained incident response teams that understand both the technology and the investigative aspects surrounding APT attacks."

According to a filing with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission on Monday, the cyber attack on Community Health Systems, a Tennessee-based health care operator with 206 hospitals in 29 states, affected patients visiting Community Health hospitals in the last five years. The data taken from the attacks did not include credit card information or medical and clinical information. However, the hackers also compromised names, addresses, birth dates and telephone numbers.

The hospital chain said that it is working with the cyber security firm called Mandiant to help figure out how the hackers were able to obtain the data. Mandiant labeled the attack as an "advanced persistent threat," a type of attack commonly associated with a group of Chinese hackers.

This attack comes in the aftermath of what many believe to have been an organized effort of Chinese military hackers that targeted American corporations in a number of intellectual industries for highly important data and blueprints.

[Paulie]

Okay, this happened in Apr-Jun timeframe. Why are we learning about this in late August?

[SMARTY]

BUT....the US government CAN protect you and your personal information in the administration of “Obamacare”!!

Right.

[molson209]

What are they going to do ,sent Spam for Viagra or Traditional Chinese Medicine ?

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

I can think of one charming retalitory action: fire up a new version of the Stuxnet virus and watch their hard drives fry.

Wouldn’t that be entertaining?

[aimhigh]

A friend of mine does PC networks and security for businesses, among other things. He was working on a PC network for a business and asked the owner if he wanted him to set up security. The owner said he'd handle it. My friend chuckled. The owner asked why he chuckled. My friend told the owner that he could break in to the system from his hotel room and make it look like it happened from the owner's home.

Most companies just don't want to pay for the necessary security.

[zeugma]

The government could help us all by publishing discovered vulnerabilities so they can be patched, rather than using them for their own nefarious purposes. Instead, they'd rather have Chinese and others able to conduct global espionage.