Hackers Break into VA Health Professions Database (prescription info)

[MountainLaurel]

Hackers last week broke into a Virginia state Web site used by pharmacists to track prescription drug abuse. They deleted records on more than 8 million patients and replaced the site's homepage with a ransom note demanding $10 million for the return of the records, according to a posting on Wikileaks.org, an online clearinghouse for leaked documents.

Wikileaks reports that the Web site for the Virginia Prescription Monitoring Program was defaced last week with a message claiming that the database of prescriptions had been bundled into an encrypted, password-protected file.

Wikileaks has published a copy of the ransom note left in place of the PMP home page, a message that claims the state of Virginia would need to pay the demand in order to gain access to a password needed to unlock those records:

"I have your 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. Uhoh :(For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/hackers_break_into_virginia_he.html?hpid=news-col-blog

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. Wow!

Does this mean I can get my oxycodone scrip filled sooner than the requisite thirty days since the last one?

Should I be concerned? If so, why am I laughing?

Oh.

The opiates. Of course ......................

[MountainLaurel]

2. *snerk*

Now see, opiates just make me mellow and sleepy.