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Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

theguardian.com

11–20 of 58 posts

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#11
post #2

TWO file photos of shady hooded figures with obscured faces and glitch art effects or other digital overlays put over the pic! Truly, this is a very comprehensive report about hacking indeed. On a serious note, I'm not at all surprised that my government's screwed up some sort of online database of private information. We had the famous census night access issues due to a DDoS and I am just waiting for that data to l…

Is there at least ONE country where IT projects are successful and with a normal price tag?

The lesson there is that people have unrealistic budget and schedule expectations of large IT projects. Same with defense, medicare, etc.

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#12
post #9

Anyone have any feasible monetization schemes for personal healthcare data?

I suppose if you have a drivers license + medicare card you could start applying for things like passports or loans. Perhaps you could get a license from someone by selling a second hand car and asking them to hand over a license while they take it for a test drive. It could also be used for blackmail I suppose if you've used a medicare for some sort of service that you want to keep private.

I think you're right though. All the people that make the most money from having health data could just lobby governments for access or just ask their customers for it.

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#13
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there at least ONE country where IT projects are successful and with a normal price tag?

The lesson there is that people have unrealistic budget and schedule expectations of large IT projects. Same with defense, medicare, etc.

I think it's just with everything. I saw a tweet once that was something like: "If you ask a programmer how long an hour will take they'll tell you 45 minutes"

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#14
post #9

Anyone have any feasible monetization schemes for personal healthcare data?

I suppose if you have a drivers license + medicare card you could start applying for things like passports or loans. Perhaps you could get a license from someone by selling a second hand car and asking them to hand over a license while they take it for a test drive. It could also be used for blackmail I suppose if you've used a medicare for some sort of service that you want to keep private. I think you're right thou…

Unlikely, you'd typically need 100 points of ID, and a Medicare card is only 25 (same as a credit card). Still a terrible leak though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#17
post #5
post #2

TWO file photos of shady hooded figures with obscured faces and glitch art effects or other digital overlays put over the pic! Truly, this is a very comprehensive report about hacking indeed. On a serious note, I'm not at all surprised that my government's screwed up some sort of online database of private information. We had the famous census night access issues due to a DDoS and I am just waiting for that data to l…

My guess, based on what's publicly available, is that this incident is quite possibly just a set of stolen or misused creds for a fairly widely available Medicare card lookup database used by doctors. In which case, this is less of a "cyber security" issue and more an issue with fundamental system design/requirements. But we'll see.

One way to avoid this would be to limit the access of a doctor to patient records. Unless you give permission at a doctor/hospital to have them access your record, they won't be able to do a lookup. Retract the permission automatically/renew it once every X months. This would make stolen/misused creds a much smaller risk.

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#18
post #9

Anyone have any feasible monetization schemes for personal healthcare data?

Advertising? "Buy medicine X now because it's much better than medicine Y for your condition". Also, insurance companies like to know what you have. If they secretly have your personal healthcare data, they could do a more focused 'sampling'.

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#19
post #9

Anyone have any feasible monetization schemes for personal healthcare data?

Blackmail. Some people may not want their health history revealed (say you're having an abortion or being treated for substance abuse). High profile individuals in particular.

Re: Patient details of 'any Australian' for sale on darknet

#20
post #2

TWO file photos of shady hooded figures with obscured faces and glitch art effects or other digital overlays put over the pic! Truly, this is a very comprehensive report about hacking indeed. On a serious note, I'm not at all surprised that my government's screwed up some sort of online database of private information. We had the famous census night access issues due to a DDoS and I am just waiting for that data to l…

Is there at least ONE country where IT projects are successful and with a normal price tag?

Estonia[0].

[0] - https://e-estonia.com/

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