Grand Est hospitals victims of a huge cyberattack

The Territory Hospital Group of the Grand Est region has been hacked. As a new method of blackmail, the hackers put the archive of almost 28 GB of data on the Darknet for sale for a limited time. When it expires, if it is not sold, passports, medical analyses, bank details, patient files, etc. will circulate freely on the networks.

For the past few days, nine establishments in the Cœur Grand-Est regional hospital group (GHT) suffer the consequences of a cyberattack, with the threat of 28.7 GB of data held hostage. These data are essentially administrative according to the GHT. This does not prevent hospitals from operating normally with patient care continuing. The particularity of this act of piracy is that the establishments have not undergone the classic ransomware that threaten to cripple computer systems and the operation of a hospital if the requested ransom is not paid. No, it is a rather new and malicious method initiated by a group of hackers from “abroad”, as the GHT press release indicates. Bearing the name of Spy Industrialthis new group of hackers, trades data directly on the Darknet.

A new vicious method

Thus, for the moment it costs 1.3 million dollars to acquire these data. In any case, this is the amount that the hospital group should pay, if it does not want ill-intentioned people to buy them back. But that’s not all, since it is a so-called temporary “Premium” offer. The data is only available at this rate exclusively for one week. After these seven days, if no buyer has come forward, then the information will be distributed freely on the network.

The concern is that the data collected includes a good deal of personal information from patients. We thus find Social Security numbers, digitized passports, bank identity statements, contracts with other organizations and suppliers, medical records, letters… In all cases, the hospital group announced that he does will pay not the requested amount. It is therefore a safe bet that this data will very quickly find its way into the wild and allow other groups of pirates to refine their techniques of phishing to always give more credibility to their hooks and better trap their targets.