Ransomware gangs allegedly hit two major US healthcare firms, 300,000 patients have data stolen

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Two US healthcare firms confirmed suffering a cyberattack
More than 300,000 victims have had sensitive data stolen
Rhysida claimed responsibility for the attack and added the data to its leak site

Ransomware operators Rhysida are claiming responsibility for cyberattacks on two US healthcare organizations.

On its data leak site, they listed Sunflower Medical Group, and Community Care Alliance (CCA). The former is a healthcare provider in the Kansas City metropolitan area offering services such as primary care, urgent care, pediatrics, and more. The latter is a unified human service agency offering more than 50 programs.

Combined, it seems that more than 300,000 people have had their sensitive data compromised as a result of these attacks.

No abuse yet

In a public announcement posted on its website, Sunflower said that the attackers broke into the systems on December 15, but were only spotted and ousted a month later, around January 7.

During that time, they stole people’s names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical information, and health insurance information. In a filing with the Maine Attorney General’s Office, Sunflower said 220,968 people were affected.

CCA, on the other hand, was struck in July last year, and claims that the miscreants took people’s names, addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, and SSNs, as well as diagnoses and conditions, lab results, medications, patient ID numbers, health insurance information, provider names, and other data. Its filing with the Maine Attorney General’s Office puts the number of affected people at 114,945.

As for Rhysida, the ransomware operators claim to have 7.6 TB worth of Sunflower’s data, including a 3TB SQL database, The Register reports. Since the data is still listed on the site, it means either that the negotiations are ongoing, or that they’ve broken down.

In any case, Rhysida is yet to leak everything on the dark web, and at press time, there was no indication of abuse in the wild. Both organizations said they tightened up on security following the incident.

Via The Register

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.