This is the equivalent of piracy on the high seas. The only difference is: records — not human life — are at the heart of the ransom demand.
By Brian Krebs and Anita Kumar
Washington Post Staff Writers
RICHMOND, Va. May 7 — The FBI and Virginia State Police are searching for hackers who have demanded the state pay them a $10 million ransom by Thursday for the return of millions of personal pharmaceutical records they stole from the state’s prescription drug database.
The hackers claim to have accessed 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions collected by the Prescription Monitoring Program.
Sandra Whitley Ryals, director of Virginia’s Department of Health Professions, declined to discuss details of the hackers’ claims and referred inquiries to the FBI.
For Full Story
