Now BlackCat extortionists threaten to leak stolen cosmetic surgery pics
Ransomware gang BlackCat claims it contaminated a cosmetic surgery middle, stole “heaps” of extremely delicate medical data, and has vowed to leak sufferers’ pictures if the clinic would not pay up.
The infamous extortion crew, aka AlphaV, on Wednesday added Beverly Hills Plastic Surgical procedure to its checklist of compromised organizations, and bragged about swiping individuals’s private info and healthcare data, “together with quite a lot of photos of sufferers that they woud [sic] not need on the market.”
The word continued: “Leak to observe if no contact made.”
Beverly Hills Plastic Surgical procedure didn’t instantly reply to The Register‘s inquiries. We are going to replace this story if and after we hear again from the California clinic.
The ransomware-as-a-service group’s associates have been particularly energetic these days, threatening to leak stolen Reddit information from a February intrusion and likewise posting delicate info belonging to Australian federal businesses and banks after breaching regulation agency HWL Ebsworth earlier this yr.
Whereas threatening to make public before-and-after pictures of nostril jobs — and presumably extra NSFW surgical enhancement photos — is particularly repulsive, even for criminals, it is not as unique because it appears.
As Emsisoft Risk Analyst Brett Callow, who posted a screenshot of the miscreants’ leak risk, pointed out: “This isn’t the primary time a ransomware operation has threatened to launch pictures of beauty surgical procedure pictures.”
REvil did it again in 2020 after breaching The Hospital Group, which claims to be the UK’s prime weight reduction and beauty surgical procedure group.
Extra just lately, different extortionists have turn into extra private of their threats, particularly as they more and more goal hospitals and different healthcare organizations entrusted with defending very delicate and personal info.
In February, BlackCat broke into an American healthcare supplier — Lehigh Valley Well being Community (LVHN) — and stole photographs of sufferers present process radiation oncology remedy together with different well being data belonging to greater than 75,000 individuals earlier than posting no less than a few of that information on-line.
A most cancers affected person whose nude medical pictures and data have been shared sued LVHN for permitting the “preventable” and “significantly damaging” leak.
If the gang’s newest claims change into true, and BlackCat did steal affected person pictures and guarded well being information belonging to Beverly Hills Plastic Surgical procedure’s shoppers, we would anticipate to see related lawsuits within the close to future. ®
