Security News > 2020 > February > Hackers Pose Increasing Risk to Medical Research Data

The intellectual property, including research results, of biotechnology companies and other medical organizations is also increasingly a target for hackers, who sometimes dump data on hacker forums or public websites.

While GBG did not identify the "Member company" impacted by the attack, media outlet Bleeping Computer on Jan. 23 reported that Medical Diagnostics Laboratory - a unit of GBG - was a victim of a Dec. 2, 2019, Maze ransomware attack that resulted in the dumping of more than 9 Gbytes of research related data on the Maze Team website.

Research data and other intellectual property of medical organizations are a growing target for hackers.

The size of the threat is unclear, she says, "Because this type of data theft will not likely require notifying anyone of the data compromise - unlike the breach of individually identifiable information. Dumping IP or R&D data can pose a reputational risk to the brand and/or increase exposure because of the awareness that their system is vulnerable."

Hackers targeting medical organizations can potentially steal research data that contains individuals' PHI and PII and dump it or offer it for sale on darknet sites.

News URL

https://www.inforisktoday.com/hackers-pose-increasing-risk-to-medical-research-data-a-13686