Russian Hackers Are Publishing Stolen Abortion Records on the Dark Web

Hackers who stole a trove of data from one of Australia’s biggest private health insurers are drip-feeding sensitive details of customers' medical diagnoses and procedures, including abortions, onto the dark web.

The leaks started flowing on Wednesday, as the hackers—who contacted Medibank in late October to reveal they’d stolen 200 gigabytes of the health insurer’s customer data—followed through on their threat to publish the information unless they were paid a ransom of $9.7 million. The cybercriminals have now revealed that figure was based on a ransom demand of $1 per customer.

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The tranches of stolen data are being published on the ransomware group’s blog as downloadable files titled “good-list” and “naughty-list.” Thus far, the leaks have included information relating to patients’ home addresses, phone numbers, and passport numbers, as well as details about health conditions such as alcohol abuse, anxiety, cannabis dependence and opioid addictions. The so-called “naughty list” is said to include high-profile figures’ private health claims relating to drugs or mental health issues.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d3435/russian-hackers-abortion-records-dark-web