Cyber Attack on Community Health Systems lost data

Reuters story:

Community Health Systems has 2 area hospitals in Granite City Gateway Regional Medical Center and Red Bud Red Bud Regional Hospital (in Illinois side of Saint Louis Metro)

 

Community Health systems has 206 regional hospitals across the country, and it appears that malware infected some computers.

Interesting note: “The company said it and its security contractor, FireEye Inc unit Mandiant, believed the attackers originated from China.”

It is easy to succumb to malware attacks and then slowly but surely the hackers will gain entry and perform their actions.

Adding Aug 19 : It is interesting that the Chinese hackers want patient data (social security, addresses and phone information) and this article at ITWorld has a good reason as to why that is.

each datapoint is worth $50-$250, so at 4.5 million patient data sets, it could be worth $225 million up til $1.1Billion.

And already there have been 150 incidents so far this year.

“In the case of Community Health Systems, hackers stole patient names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers. They did not steal medical data, Community Health Systems said — but that data can be the real prize in such breaches.”