AZ Plastic Surgery Center refused to give extortion to TDO
TheDarkOverLord (TDO) hacked another healthcare provider yet again. This time the plastic surgeon of Arizona, Dr. Robert Spies computer network has been hacked by cybercriminal hacking group TDO.
Dr. Spies became aware that cyber criminals have gained unauthorized access of its computer network on Dec. 10, 2018. The AZ Plastic Surgery Center immediately contacted the local law enforcement authorities as well as the FBI, and has been cooperating in their investigations. The Surgery Center also hired a team of third-party forensics in order to find if their systems and data are at risk.
The investigation found that the hackers possibly viewed and/or accessed the documents containing patients' personal as well as medical information, which includes names, dates of birth, addresses, procedure notes, health insurance numbers, diagnoses and medications.
For a small number of patients, the hackers could have viewed passport numbers, Social Security numbers and/or driver's licenses if those documents were provided for the verification purposes. Besides, some financial account numbers, credit card numbers, or pre-op photos have been compromised as well. At present, no evidence has been found which confirms that the patient information was misused.
In December, 2018, a notice was posted by TheDarkOverLord on KickAss which claimed to have hacked office of a top plastic surgeon in the Arizona state of United States. This notice posted by TDO further stated that "this surgery center is owned by Doctor Robert J. Spies and operates on celebrity patients. His website is (www.azplasticsurgerycenter.com). We'll share some of his data with yoou, since he's refused our most handsome business proposition".
The sample data has been around 532 MB archive with the folders containing the "Dictations" (i.e. 75 files), "Photos" (i.e. over 160 photographs), and the "Patient ID Verification" (i.e. 4 files). The meta data inspection suggests that newest dictation files has been created on Dec. 5, 2018, and is related to consultations or services conducted on Nov. 28, 2018.
With the hacking of this Plastic Surgery Center, TheDarkOverLord may have expected that people -- especially the celebrities -- will pay good amount of money in order to stop release of their before, during, and/or after photographs of plastic surgery publicly. But, it seems like that Dr. Spies refused to pay TDO any extortion money and has reported about this incident to HHS, law enforcement, and his patients.
» SPAMfighter News - 3/12/2019