- MEMBERS RECEIVE ACCESS TO:
- CIO Leadership Group
  CIO Leadership Task Force provides a unique forum for Chief Information Officers from the largest cities and counties in the U.S. to privately interact, both through an online collaboration site and in regular face-to-face meetings. It offers these leaders an on-going opportunity to share information and experiences, and to discussing IT challenges facing larger community jurisdictions.
- Digital Infrastructure
  Task Force
  The Digital Infrastructure Task Force is a collaborative networking group for government IT professionals. Through timely exchange of information and experiences, both online and through regular face to face meetings, municipal and regional government members help each other to make smarter technology decisions for their communities.
- Law Enforcement
  IT Task Force
  The Law Enforcement Task Force is a collaborative networking group for local law enforcement officials from across the nation. In online and regular face to face meetings, both sworn and civilian law enforcement officials come here to discuss technology trends, collaboration and information sharing opportunities within the local law enforcement community.
- Private Events
  and Webinars
- Exclusive White Papers
- JOIN:
- Public Sector
- Private Sector
Digital Communities Home
Introduction
Feature Articles
Local Government Events
Contact
Digital Communities Blogs
Digital Citizen Pulse
Broadband Nation
Web 2.0 Convergence
In the Trenches
International Beat
Notes from a City CIO
Intelligent Communities
MuniGov 2.0
Surveys and Awards
Digital Cities Survey
Digital Counties Survey
DGAA Awards
Best of the Web Awards
Reference and
Resource Library
White Papers
Exclusives
Webinars
Best Practices
Digital Communities
Special Focus
Current Issue
Past Issues
Subscribe

Digital Communities
Industry Members

Click sponsor logos for whitepapers, case studies, and best practices.

Cyber-Criminal Demands $10 Million Ransom After Breaching Virginia Medical Records

May 7, 2009 By Hilton Collins

The FBI and the Virginia State Police are on the hunt for a malicious hacker who breached millions of medical records last week and is now threatening to sell them unless someone forks over $10 million.

The breach was originally reported on WikiLeaks, a site that publishes and comments on reports of leaked documents. According to the site, when people logged on to the Web site of the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program on April 30, they saw a ransom note containing the following information:

"I have your s@*t! In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh :(

"For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password. You have 7 days to decide. If by the end of 7 days, you decide not to pony up, I'll go ahead and put this baby out on the market and accept the highest bid."

The note's author threatened to sell the information to the highest bidder if the money isn't turned over.

Thursday was the purported deadline for the ransom.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine Infuriated

The Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program Web site, which pharmacists use to track drug prescriptions to monitor narcotics abuse, is currently offline while authorities investigate the problem, the Daily Mail reported Thursday.

ABC 7 News also reported Thursday that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine told The Associated Press that he was infuriated by the acts and that the state won't make the payments.

Health officials called the FBI after viewing the ransom demand on the Web site last week.

If more than 8 million patient records are up for grabs, this could be a spectacularly huge problem for most of Virginia's residents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Virginia was home to 7.8 million people in 2008.

Sandra Whitley Ryals, director of the Virginia Department of Health Professions, told the Daily Mail that her department is satisfied that all the data was properly backed up.

| More

CBS Video Details Electronic Medical Records Conversion, Issues

Add Your Comment

Name *

Comment *

You are solely responsible for the content of your comments. We reserve the right to remove comments that are considered profane, vulgar, obscene, factually inaccurate, off-topic, or considered a personal attack.

In Our Library

White Papers | Exclusives Reports | Webinar Archives | Best Practices and Case Studies

Mobile Capture - taking the first step: Download this whitepaper and learn how to reduce costs and improve the value of services to compete effectively. This insightful use case demonstrates the benefits of providing branch employees, field representatives and customers with the ability to capture application forms and supporting documents with a mobile phone or tablet, and immediately have them validated and fed directly into the back office process.
Hurricane Preparedness: Make sure you are prepared for hurricane season before it is here. Join in this Digital Communities teleconference and gain insight on how to prepare from experts who have been on the ground during major hurricanes.
Government-to-Government IT Services: What Works and What's Left to Work Out: This paper offers some best practices for shared government-to-government services, but also points out challenges that government and industry still must overcome before this model gains widespread adoption.

Latest From Digital Communities Features

Follow @dcommunities

Government Best Practices

Mobile Capture - taking the first step

Digital Cities & Digital Counties Survey: Best Practice Guide

Real Time for McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator

Public Safety Guide: From Call to Car to Crisis

Public Safety Mobile Apps for 4G Networks

10 Requirements for a Successful Oracle R12 Upgrade

Business Intelligence Roadmap

Featured White Papers & Reports

Government-to-Government IT Services: What Works and What's Left to Work Out

This Digital Communities white paper highlights discussions with IT officials in four counties that have adopted shared services models. Our aim was to learn about the obstacles these governments have faced when it comes to shared services and what it takes to overcome those roadblocks. We also spoke with several members of the IT industry who have thought long and hard about these issues. The paper offers some best practices for shared government-to-government services, but also points out challenges that government and industry still must overcome before this model gains widespread adoption.

View Full Library

Events

GTC East

Don't miss this opportunity to see the latest in digital government solutions, keep abreast of current policy issues and network with key government executives, technologists and industry specialists.

View All Events