"200K Veterans’ Medical Records Likely Stolen by Ransomware Gang"

A cybersecurity researcher named Jeremiah Fowler found an exposed database sitting exposed online without even basic password protection on April 18th.  The database was filled with the medical records of nearly 200,000 U.S. military veterans.  The database was exposed online by a vendor working for United Valor which is a Veterans Administration.  The exposed data included patient names, birth dates, medical information, contact information, doctor information, and appointment times.  All of this data could be used in socially engineered attacks, Fowler explained. The database also exposed unencrypted passwords and billing details.  Fowler stated that the database was set to open and visible in any browser (publicly accessible), and anyone could edit, download or even delete data without administrative credentials.  The researcher also found evidence that ransomware attackers might have exfiltrated the data.  The dataset also contained a ransomware message titled “read_me” that claimed all of the records were downloaded, and they would be leaked unless 0.15 Bitcoin ($8,148) was paid.

Threatpost reports: "200K Veterans’ Medical Records Likely Stolen by Ransomware Gang"