LifeLabs pays ransom after data breach affecting up to 15M Canadians

If you don’t live in Canada, you might not know that LifeLabs has a virtual monopoly on the lab business. If your doctor wants you to take a blood test, you go to LifeLabs.

Whomever broke into their systems knows a great deal about the private health information of a large fraction of Canadians.

Just a few months ago I had to take a series of tests with LifeLabs (blood, urine, physical, etc) to update my immigration papers. Did you know you cannot choose where to take these tests? You are more or less forced to use LifeLabs because the doctors designated by the IRCC (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada) only partner with LifeLabs to do these tests, it’s an ugly monopoly that is impossible to fight as an immigrant. I knew, from the moment I walked in the laboratory, all the information I was handing and the data they were going to find was going to be leaked sooner than later.

I have tried more than once to make secretaries, assistants and nurses to understand how bad most of their systems are and how easy it is to expose the information of all their patients to malicious actors, but arguing with them is pointless because they barely understand what I am talking about or do not have the power to change anything. And the worst thing is, I have to visit LifeLabs again next month for another physical checkup and to take some X-rays and these news will not change anything.

Side note…

I used to work as a malware researcher for a security information company in the US. One day I remembered the story of Sisyphus:

> In Greek mythology Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll down when it nears the top, repeating this action for eternity — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

I ended up quitting my job no long after reading this story because it made me realize I was fighting an endless fight.

Do they perform some back-office analysis function for Quebec's public health system, or is this get another way Quebec is different from the rest of Canada?

Here in Quebec we generally get our blood drawn for tests at a local public clinic called a CLSC, and can eventually view the results in a public government web system, but I'm not sure where the actual analysis happens.

Non-paywalled: http://archive.is/mwQN6