The Realistic Vulnerability of Medical Data: How Easy is It to Steal and Who Wants It?

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The Realistic Vulnerability of Medical Data: How Easy is It to Steal and Who Wants It?

Medicine and medical practices have changed a lot in the last century. The rapidly shifting technological advancements that are constantly being improved and pushing more innovation in the industry has put those changes into motion at a pace that, while impressive and helpful, can also be challenging and intimidating. That has to do not only with the fact that medical techniques are usurping and rendering previously effective techniques and technology outdated, but also in that new technologies come with a learning curve.

While surgical techniques, forensic nursing jobs, and vitals monitoring equipment will always be standard procedure and have been for many decades, the influx of online storage and data processing centers, widespread IOT usage, filing techniques, and telehealth services are new enough that they are creating a new factor in healthcare that is concerning: cyber security.

Cybercrime has been on the rise as more and more personalized information is being digitized. The valuable and sometimes easily stealable information can catch high prices on unsavory trading platforms. Addresses, email accounts, phone numbers, and credit card information are now just a common requirement of accessing or participating in any type of modern service.

While this has become standard practice, criminals with the skillset and knowledge are doing their worst to capitalize both the unsuspecting and the well prepared. Sadly, even if a company or organization is aware of the threats that accompany modern, digital economics and has taken cyber security seriously enough to outsource or establish in-house security teams, there are still breaches that happen.

The reality and convenience of having medical information stored electronically accessible, while revolutionizing the way the healthcare industry operates, has also created a huge, tempting target for criminal activity.

High Value Data

Medical data is highly valuable on the dark web and can fetch a high price due to a variety of types of information and the detailed, sensitive nature of the data. Things like names, addresses, and social security numbers but more complex or sensitive information like medical history, diagnoses, and treatment plans.

All of these things can be used by cyber criminals’ activities like identity theft, insurance fraud, and even forms of blackmail. The many ways that hackers can use stolen data is only limited to the imagination of those criminals, but one of the reasons that medial data is a juicer target than other forms of personal information is that medical records are harder to track and can allow cyber-criminal activity to go undetected longer than other personally identifiable information. 

Unlike the more common and assumedly predictable targets that cyber criminals go after like credit card numbers, passwords, or addresses, medical records are harder to alter than, say, changing a password once a month.

Additionally, that lack of malleability means that, when criminals are dealing with certain reputable services, the detailed nature of that information carries less suspicion.

Identity Theft

Identity theft simply means that a criminal attempts to use legitimate personal information as a means by which to impersonate an innocent person for the purposes of committing fraud. Having access to a slew of personal information allows criminals to hack into secure websites or fool services into releasing money or other information that can be valuable to crime syndicates. Credit scores can be damaged, money stolen, and even reputations can be ruined.

While some of those may be the more extreme cases, a simpler form of fraud is when medical records allow criminals to access medical services like insurance benefits for prescriptions at another person’s expense.

Dark Web Resale

The dark web sounds like something out of a spy novel, but sadly, it is a reality. The dark web provides a forum for anonymity whereby criminals can communicate, sell, or trade information, supplies, and materials. Cybercriminals will often sell things like social security numbers and emails for as little as $1-$3, whereas medical records fetch prices as much as $1,000 or more. These prices and the harder-to-track- nature of medical records are what causes hackers to keep going after such information.

How Its Stolen

There are a variety of ways in which digital data can be compromised or stolen but some of the more common include the following:

• Phishing- This type of attack is so common that most of the public is familiar with what the phrase means. Phishing attacks are where hackers attempt to trick users into voluntarily giving up personal information or money by impersonating legitimate services. Something as simple as a phone call or text message with malicious attachments can create an inroad for criminals to access someone’s software.
• Brute Force- While not necessarily the most elegant or clever way to commit a crime, brute force attacks are still effective. In this way cyber criminals attempt to guess a password or login credentials and thereby gain access to that company’s stored data on that customer. If the right kind of information is there, then guessing a single password may be enough to garner a significant payout.
  
  Regardless of the ways in which cybercrime is committed, medical records are a lucrative target and costly to those who are the victims.