SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
26 Dec 2016

Black market medical record prices drop to under $10

The black market value of stolen medical records dropped dramatically this year, and criminals shifted their efforts from stealing data to spreading ransomware, according to a report released this morning.

Hackers are now offering stolen records at between $1.50 and $10 each, said Anthony James, CMO at San Mateo, Calif.-based security firm TrapX, the company that produced the report.

That's a big drop from 2012, when the World Privacy Forum put the street value of medical records at around $50 each. That's because the average profit per record was about $20,000. The information in medical records can be used for medical billing fraud as well as identity theft and other big-money scams. But the market has become saturated, said James. With about 112 million records stolen in 2015 alone, the medical info of nearly half all Americans is already out there.

For example, this past summer, a hacker offered nearly half a million records from several hacked databases, at an average of around $1 per record, and another 9 million records for less than 10 cents each. Plus, 2015's megabreaches, like the Anthem loss of about 80 million records, was a big wake-up call.

"2015 was obviously a year where cybersecurity came to the forefront for the health care industry," he said. The combination of a bigger focus on cybersecurity and a falling rate of return for stolen records contributed to a large drop in the volume of losses this year. Although the number of organizations breached went up, from 57 last year to 93 this year, the total number of records lost fell by nearly 90 percent to just 12 million records.

TrapX looked at breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services, after filtering out all non-hacking-related breaches such as stolen laptops. All breaches of 500 records or more must be reported, James said, though companies have six months in which to make the reports. So the final tally for 2016 could be higher, he said.

Last year's avalanche of awful breach news also woke up health insurance providers and other organizations likely to be targeted by scammers, so they're now more on alert. "Organizations are taking steps to shore up cybersecurity," James said. With the falling rate of return for stolen records, scammers have turned to other types of attacks, instead.

"That's why ransomware has started to increase," he said. "That's where they're getting their money now." One benefit of ransomware, for the attacker at least, is that the payoff is immediate, he said. There's no need to figure out how to monetize the stolen data. Criminals will continue to escalate ransomware campaigns in 2017, James predicted. Attacks on connected devices will also increase at a higher rate than in previous years.

Tags:
hackers information leaks
Source:
CSO Online
1741
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015