750,000 French Patients’ Data Leaked While Advertisers Sell Data Of US Military Workers

Digitalization comes with one major drawback—privacy issues.

This can be of the simpler variety where a technology company leverages your personal and private information to target tailored ads towards its users, or of the more dangerous kind where sensitive personal user data finds its way into the hands of bad actors through hacks, ransomware attacks, phishing scams or other illegal means.

In the last week, both these kinds of incidents transpired, affecting millions of people.

For one, an unnamed French hospital was attacked by a hacker, who breached its electronic patient record (ERP) system.

A bad actor using the nickname “nears” (previously “near2tlg”), who claims to be behind the attack, put up the data for sale on BreachForums, saying they had the details of over 1.5 million people.

To prove that they had the data, the bad actor leaked the data of over 750,000 patients (758,912 to be exact).

As per a report by BleepingComputer, the data was offered to three buyers, however, no buyers were declared for the data. This included information from multiple hospitals including Centre Luxembourg, Clinique Alleray-Labrouste, Clinique Jean d'Arc, Clinique Saint-Isabelle, and Hôpital Privé de Thiais.

The compromised data contains information such as name, date of birth, gender, address, city, postal code, phone number/s, and email addresses of patients.

Furthermore, medical information such as attending physicians, prescriptions, death declarations, external identifiers, and health card history was included.

The hacker claimed to have more information spanning billing, passport, ID card, appointment schedules, creation and modification of medical records, and more.

The hacker claims to have breached MediBoard, an ERP solution developed by Softway Medical Group.

While Softway Medical Group confirmed that a MediBoard account was indeed compromised, the breach didn’t involve problems in its systems but was executed due to stolen credentials used by the hospital.

An excerpt from an email shared by Softway read (translated) “On November 19, 2024, a cyberattack was detected within a healthcare facility using our MediBoard software. We would like to emphasize that the data in question was not hosted by Softway Medical Group.”

“From the moment the attack was authenticated and confirmed that morning, our teams immediately informed the concerned client. We mobilized our operational, technical, and service management teams to assist the client in handling the situation effectively.”

“At this time, our thorough investigations, which are still ongoing, confirm that our MediBoard software is not implicated in this cyberattack.”

TechDogs-"An Image Showing The Details Of The French Hospital Breach"

Source

On the unethical but legal side of data sharing comes the recent joint investigation by WIRED, Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), and Netzpolitik.org, which found that US-based companies are legally collecting location data for the purpose of advertising.

This collection isn’t restricted to just users within the United States but also US nationals in foreign countries, which can include military personnel and intelligence workers.

The report finds that over 3 billion phone coordinates have been collected, and reflects movement to top-secret intelligence sites, nuclear vaults, and even brothels in Germany, which is where the investigation was conducted.

“We tracked hundreds of thousands of signals from devices inside sensitive US installations in Germany. That includes scores of devices within suspected NSA monitoring or signals-analysis facilities, more than a thousand devices at a sprawling US compound where Ukrainian troops were being trained in 2023, and nearly 2,000 others at an air force base that has crucially supported American drone operations,” reads the report.

Since these methods are currently legal, US leaders and Pentagon officials remain powerless in stopping such tracking.

Moreover, these techniques are essentially providing the world with cheap ways to track the movements of US government officials living abroad. From the time they leave their homes to when they drop their children off at school, from which restaurant they eat at to the location of numerous top-secret military installations and air bases—everything can be tracked and traced, including timings and more.

This raises an important question about the ethics of tracking user data, location, and other information and putting it up for sale in the name of advertising.

Do you think social media companies should be barred from collecting information from high-ranking officials and government officials not just in foreign countries but also at home?

Let us know in the comments below!

First published on Thu, Nov 21, 2024

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750,000 French Patients’ Data Leaked While Advertisers Sell Data Of US Military Workers

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