Hackers attack Indian healthcare website, steal 68 lakh records

Agencies
August 22, 2019

In a startling revelation, US-based cyber security firm FireEye said on Thursday that hackers broke into a leading India-based healthcare website, stealing 68 lakh records containing patient and doctor information.

Without naming the website, FireEye said cyber criminals -- mostly China-based -- are directly selling data stolen from healthcare organisations and web portals globally including in India in the underground markets.

"In February, a bad actor that goes by the name "fallensky519" stole 6,800,000 records associated with an India-based healthcare website that contains patient information and personally identifiable information (PII), doctor information and PII and credentials," FireEye said in its report shared with media.

Between October 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019, FireEye Threat Intelligence observed multiple healthcare-associated databases for sale on underground forums, many for under $2,000.

FireEye said it continues to witness a concerted focus on acquiring healthcare research by multiple Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) groups.

"In particular, it is likely that an area of unique interest is cancer-related research, reflective of China's growing concern over increasing cancer and mortality rates, and the accompanying national health care costs," the cyber security agency noted.

Open source reports indicate that cancer mortality rates have increased dramatically in recent decades, making cancer China's leading cause of death.

As the People's Republic of China (PRC) continues to pursue universal healthcare by 2020, controlling costs and domestic industry will surely affect the PRC's strategy to maintain political stability," said the FireEye report.

Another probable motivation for APT activity is financial: the PRC has one of the world's fastest growing pharmaceutical markets, creating lucrative opportunities for domestic firms, especially those that provide oncology treatments or services.

"Targetting medical research and data from studies may enable Chinese corporations to bring new drugs to market faster than Western competitors," the report claimed.

In early April this year, suspected Chinese cyber espionage actors targeted a US-based health center-with a strong focus on cancer research - with "EVILNUGGET" malware.

APT22 - a Chinese group that has focused on biomedical, pharmaceutical, and healthcare organizations in the past, and continues to be active - also targeted this same organization in prior years.

In the same month, several researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Research were dismissed following concerns over theft of medical research on behalf of the Chinese government.

One theme FireEye has observed among Chinese cyber espionage actors targeting the healthcare sector is the theft of large sets of personally identifiable information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI).

Beyond Chinese-nexus groups, FireEye Intelligence has observed a wide variety of other cyber espionage and nation state actors involved in targeting the healthcare sector, including Russia-nexus APT28.

"The valuable research being conducted within some of these institutions continues to be an attractive target for nation-states seeking to leapfrog their domestic industries," the report emphasised.

As biomedical devices increase in usage, the potential for them to become an attractive target for disruptive or destructive cyber attacks - especially by actors willing to assume greater risk - may present a more contested attack surface than today," said the report.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
May 10,2020

In the wake of the gas leak at a factory in Visakhapatnam, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued detailed guidelines for restarting industries after the lockdown and the precautions to be taken for the safety of the plants as well as the workers.

In a communication to all states and union territories, the NDMA said due to several weeks of lockdown and the closure of industrial units, it is possible that some of the operators might not have followed the established standard operating procedures.

As a result, some of the manufacturing facilities, pipelines, valves may have residual chemicals, which may pose risk. The same is true for the storage facilities with hazardous chemicals and flammable materials, it said.

The NDMA guidelines said while restarting a unit, the first week should be considered as the trial or test run period after ensuring all safety protocols.

Companies should not try to achieve high production targets. There should be 24-hour sanitisation of the factory premises, it said.

The factories need to maintain a sanitisation routine every two-three hours especially in the common areas that include lunch rooms and common tables which will have to be wiped clean with disinfectants after every single use, it added.

For accommodation, the NDMA said, sanitisation needs to be performed regularly to ensure worker safety and reduce the spread of contamination.

To minimise the risk, it is important that employees who work on specific equipment are sensitised and made aware of the need to identify abnormalities like strange sounds or smell, exposed wires, vibrations, leaks, smoke, abnormal wobbling, irregular grinding or other potentially hazardous signs which indicate the need for immediate maintenance or if required shutdown, it said.

At least 11 people lost their lives and about 1,000 others were exposed to a gas leak at a factory in Andhra Pradesh''s Visakhapatnam on May 7.

The incident took place after it restarted operations when the government allowed industrial activities in certain sectors following several weeks of lockdown.

The lockdown was first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 for 21 days in a bid to combat the coronavirus threat. The lockdown was then extended till May 3 and again till May 17.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
May 15,2020

Kolkata, May 15: Veteran Bengali author Debesh Roy, who was conferred the Sahitya Akademi award for his novel 'Teesta Parer Brittanto', died at a private hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, his family members said.

Roy was 84 and he is survived by his son. His wife had died earlier.

He was admitted to the hospital near his residence at Baguihati, in the eastern fringes of the city, on Wednesday after having symptoms like sodium potasium imbalance, sugar problem and breathing problem, his family members said.

He suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died at 10.50 PM.

A regular contributor to a number of Bengali dailies, he was a staunch critic of the attacks on liberals by in the country in recent times and attended protest meetings despite his failing health.

He was born in Pabna in present-day Bangladesh on December 17, 1936. He had five decades of career as a writer.

Besides Teesta Parer Britanta', he will be remembered for books like Borisaler Jogen Mondal , Manush Khun Kore Keno and Samay Asamayer Brittanto . His first book was Jajati.

His last rites will be performed tomorrow.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
July 9,2020

Twitter has hinted that it is planning a paid subscription platform that can be reused by other teams in the future.

The news that the micro-blogging platform is building a subscription platform with a team codenamed "Gryphon" resulted in Twitter stock rising over 8% on Wednesday.

Twitter revealed its plan via a job listing that seeks a full-stack senior software engineer in New York to join "Gryphon".

Interestingly, Twitter "edited" the job listing once the news broke, removing the part about "Gryphon" and any mention of their internal team or their subscription feature. The listing said the company is looking for an Android engineer to "work on a bevy of backend engineering teams to build components that allow for experimentation to deliver the best experience possible to all of our users".

Later, Twitter users noticed that the company restored the earlier job listing that mentioned the upcoming subscription platform and "Gryphon".

A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN on Wednesday that it's only a job posting, not a product announcement.

This is not the first time Twitter has thought of a paid product. 

In 2017, it sent out a survey to users and a preview of what a premium offering of its TweetDeck app might look like, including breaking news alerts and more analytics, according to The Verge.

"We're conducting this survey to assess the interest in a new, more enhanced version of Tweetdeck. We regularly conduct user research to gather feedback about people's Twitter experience and to better inform our product investment decisions, and we're exploring several ways to make TweetDeck even more valuable for professionals," a Twitter spokesperson had said at that time.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.