Hijacked medical server used to play Call of Duty: Black Ops

by Steve Ragan - Jan 14 2011, 06:30

Clearly not all data breach notifications are equal. Case in point is a notice delivered to patients of Seacoast Radiology, after there was a potential breach involving their medical records. However, the servers breached were not hit for their data, they were hit for their bandwidth.

“On January 11, 2011, notification letters were mailed on behalf of Seacoast Radiology to a group of individuals whose medical billing related information was stored on a Seacoast Radiology office server, following the discovery of unauthorized access to that server on November 12, 2010,” an informational website on the breach explains.

There was no credit card data stored on the server. However, the records of just over 230,000 patients were stored there, which is why the notifications were delivered. Seacoast hired ID Experts to help with the PR efforts related to the breach.

According to information from ID Experts, the server contained patient names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers, as well as basic medical diagnosis codes and basic procedure codes for billing purposes.

The delay in notification was due to the time it takes “to gather the relevant information, identify the affected individuals, hold the necessary internal discussions, and make the appropriate decisions.”

In a statement, ID Experts’ Lisa MacKenzie said that the ones responsible for the breach did so to hijack space and bandwidth to play the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops. While the records were there, it appears they were ignored. “They didn’t have any interest in this data,” she said.

“Seacoast Radiology understands the impact of the accidental data exposure of its patients. They are actively reviewing their privacy and data security programs and implementing changes that will further enhance the protection of privacy and the handling of sensitive information,” a separate statement from ID Experts said.

For patients with questions, they are asked to contact ID Experts at 1-877-803-8699 for more information.

Last month, Black Ops joined the likes of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Hollywood blockbuster Avatar by rocketing beyond $1 billion USD in sales.

We’d like to give a tip of the hat to Christopher Boyd (Paperghost) from GFI Labs for bringing this story to our attention. As he said on Thursday, “This one gets my nomination for Strangest Story of the Day.”

 

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