It is reported that a hacker who claimed to have stolen the medical records of more than 8.3 million residents of the state of Virginia is demanding whopping 10 million dollars. The hacker is also threatening to sell the data to the highest bidder if authorities did not pay him by Thursday. The FBI and state police officials are now investigating the issue.
The report came a week after someone managed to take over a Virginia Department of Health professions website that monitors prescriptions to track the sales of controlled substances. The hacker shut down the site and posted a ransom note on WikiLeaks. The note reads:
“Attention Virgina,” the demand read, “In my possession right now are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too.”
Sandra Whitley Ryals, director of Virginia’s Department of Health Professions, confirmed that a criminal investigation is going on regarding a potential security breach of the PMP database, but declined to comment on further details of the case.