Free Why Hackers Are Targeting The Medical Sector Essay Sample
Type of paper: Essay
Topic: Medicine, Information, Health, Victimology, Attack, Violence, Banking, Victim
Pages: 1
Words: 275
Published: 2020/11/04
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Hackers are targeting the medical sector because they find the medical records as gold. Recently, the hackers attacked Anthem that is considered to be the second largest health insurer in the United States of America. This attack provided the hackers access to personal information of millions of customers and employees. This information is significant to these hackers as it is sold at a premium price in the black market. The hackers believe that the economics of the data provided by health care is of utmost significance and can provide millions of dollars to them. Apart from the personal information of customers and employees, the hackers accessed the social security numbers, email address, postal addresses and also the medical information numbers that are considered to be the most damaging to the health care industry and can be used for medical forgery. According to Dell Secure Works that a health insurance complete record was sold for US$ 20 per piece in the underground markets two years back. This amount is 10-20 times more than the real worth of U.S. credit card number with a security code (Peterson, p.1).
It is also noted that between the year 2009-2013 the hackers attack on the healthcare industry increased to about 100 percent out of which almost 40 percent were criminal cyber attacks and the information collected through the attack was used for medical frauds. This information can also be used to impersonate the victim whose information has been attacked to avail the medical benefits by the hackers that the victim enjoys or to purchase motorized wheelchairs and other expensive medical equipment. This type of medical fraud takes a longer detection time as compared to the credit card information fraud (Peterson, p.1).
Work Cited
Peterson Andrea Why Hackers are Targeting the Medical Sector (Feb 2015), Washington Post, p.1, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/02/05/why-hackers-are-targeting-the-medical-sector/
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