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Hazards of Ransomware are real for Cryptocurrency Miners

Ashley Williams
July 02, 2018
4 minutes read
2441

Cryptocurrency may well be the future of economic landscape and it has the potential of taking the entire FinTech category to a whole new level. But like any technological advancement, few elements and individuals always crawl out of their holes to make some easy buck by defrauding people. Well, unfortunately, cryptocurrency has also find its proverbial pirates. Cryptocurrency miners are now using ransomware to earn money off the people that might be interested in these new age virtual currencies.

The appeal of cryptocurrency is fueled by the unsubstantiated rise in prices of Bitcoin over the few years. This increase in prices, gave rise to a trend where thousands of tech enthusiasts and people looking to earn easy money, lined up to benefit from Bitcoin bubble. Several of them even opted to mine these coins themselves to get even a better chance of earning sure shot profits. Now, this led to many hackers and online bandits to mine potential ransomware to earn even higher amounts. Some even launched their own coins and virtual currency to even avoid detection by authorities or crypto-vigilanties.

What is a Ransomware?

Ransomware works like a common malware but instead of leading to hacked crucial information or documents, the person attacking your personal computer locks down access to important and vital data. Access to that information is gained by the hacker by successful entry of ransomware to your computer. This can be in the form of a file that you clicked upon or a doctored software that you tried to install on your computer. In order to regain access to their files and important documents, users are asked by hackers to pay them specific amount of money, otherwise, their vital data will be deleted or dumped for good. Ironically, ransomware attackers even ask users to pay them in major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin so that transactions are not traceable by authorities.

A normal user of Personal Computer might not consider itself to be target of such an attack but trust us, when we say that the extent of hazards attached with ransomware are huge. Your personal photographs, your personal chat history, address books and credentials you use to login to your bank accounts from your home computer are all at risk, if you are attacked by a ransomware.

Businesses and employees working in corporate sector are another regular target of ransomware. A simple click on an unsafe link from a workstation, has the potential to risk entire company’s digital databank and servers. In a recent global attack of ransomware, companies were made to pay millions of dollars to safeguard their important files, documents and data from permanent deletion.

Case Studies of Ransomware via Cryptocurrencies

The out of the box concept of using personal computers for virtual currencies mining is real subtle. Hackers have designed some well guised mining programs that specifically target computers that have either an outdated Operating system or that are using non-effective firewall against such brute force. Typically considered to be stowaways, these ransomware are very hard to detect and payments via cryptocurrencies remain largely untracked. Even when detected, it is very hard to remove and you have no other way to pay them off to rid your computer from these malicious bots. Not to mention, there is this huge blow to the performance of your PC due to a large, yet anonymous, workload.

Although, it seems to be a dangerous path for crypto enthusiasts and people interested in ICOs but in actuality, if you do a proper research before buying cryptocurrencies, you will be safe. Don’t forget to check out reviews for an ICO from some leading crypto enthusiasts. Also make sure that you only invest in an ICO that already has placed stringent KYC and AML compliance measures. To avoid being targeted by hackers, make sure that you are using perfectly updated OS on your personal or work computer. A powerful firewall is also a must-have feature on your computer to ward off unwanted access to your computer.

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Disclaimer: No warranty is herein provided that the information contained in this document is accurate, up-to-date, and/or complete. In no circumstance(s), does such information constitute legal or any other advice. Any person who intends to use, rely, pass-on, or re-publish the information contained herein in any way is solely responsible for the same. We suggest to verify the information and/or obtain expert advice independently if required.

Latest News

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Defendants plead guilty of allegations in Medicare Fraud in U.S. District Court
What is a Ransomware?
Case Studies of Ransomware via Cryptocurrencies
Two defendants, Jessica Jones from Colorado, and Elizabeth Putulin from Florida pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud allegations. Senior Judge, George A. O’Toole at the U.S. district course, proposed the sentencing for May 19, 2021.

Jones and Putulin were found guilty of partnering with Juan Camilo Perz to bag $109 million in false claims for medical equipment, including knee, shoulder, arm, and back braces. Last year in October, Perz paid kickbacks after declaring himself responsible for a fraud scheme in the federal healthcare program in the US, Medicare. The offender is to be sentenced on March 4, 2021.

The two women confessed to helping Perz submit bogus and false Medicare claims through shell companies spanning over a dozen states in the States. Perz hired Jones and Putulin to provide fictitious names and act as corporate directors to present their shell company as a Durable Medical Equipment (DME) service provider. They acquired foreign and domestic patient records from different call centers, targeting an older group of patients.

Moreover, they also used the call centers to ask medicare beneficiaries for offers regarding arm, shoulder, and knee braces at a very cheap price. Later, Perz tendered the Medicare claims on behalf of those patients without their consent or a prescriber’s recommendation. This gave a notion that the braces were medically necessary.

Also, the offenders were charged with filing insurance claims of the deceased, and the same people repeatedly. Perz failed to provide convincing evidence for DME offerings of more than $7.5 million. This was because when he provided DME to patients, they were charged 12 times more than the actual price of the equipment.

The court ended the proceedings by sentencing the fraudsters to 10 years in prison with a fine of $250,000. The sentence penalty was decided in light of the standard U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.

Recent Posts

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Healthcare is the New Target of Criminals - What's the Solution?
What is a Ransomware?
Case Studies of Ransomware via Cryptocurrencies
The healthcare sector has been facing many challenges due to coronavirus pandemic. Cybercrimes have significantly increased and this industry has become the primary target of fraudsters. Modern technology has brought several conveniences in the healthcare sector. However, criminals are also using advanced technology to fulfil their malicious intent. The rate of cybercrime rate has skyrocketed in 2020 and the predictions for 2021 are not very satisfying either. According to BBC, healthcare will be on the frontline of cybersecurity in 2021. Different reports have revealed that there is an approximately 50% increase in cyberattacks on the healthcare sector. Fraudsters will figure out better ways to execute their plans but there is a way that can help the health sector in combating them.

Let’s take a look at some of the cybercrimes that have been reported repeatedly, a solution to combat these fraudulent activities, and the regulations to enhance the security of the sector.
What are the Crimes in the Healthcare Sector?

Criminal activities in the healthcare sector are more or less the same as in any other industry. However, the results of these crimes are more severe than what one could expect. Some major crimes in this sector include:

Data breach

Ransomware

Medical identity theft

Phishing attacks
Ransomware in Healthcare

In a ransomware attack, the criminal injects a virus using three methods; phishing attack, clickbait, malvertising (user clicks on a malicious advertisement). The tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) keep evolving with time but the healthcare facility has to bear with the loss. By sending a phishing email or using another ransomware method, the fraudsters gain access to the facility’s database and acquire all the patient records. Many cases of healthcare ransomware were reported in 2020. One of them was the GBMC’s case.

GBMC Healthcare Under Ransomware Attack

As reported on December 9, 2020, by Healthcare IT Security, GBMC healthcare in Maryland was under a ransomware attack on December 6, 2020. The malware was injected in the facility’s IT systems and the hospital claimed that they have been maintaining robust security measures to protect patients’ data. However, there were some procedures scheduled for Monday that had to be postponed.

Data Breach in Healthcare

The average cost of a data breach in healthcare is $158 per record. The staggering numbers make Protected Healthcare Information (PHI) even more valuable than PII. A data breach is an incident in which fraudsters illegally acquire access to the company’s database and use the available information for other illegal activities like identity theft. Only at the end of 2020, the healthcare data breaches rose up to 45% and the healthcare sector overall accounts for 79% of the data breaches reported annually. The top 10 data breaches reported last year exposed millions of records and DCA alliance data breach won the race.

DCA Alliance Breach Exposed 1,000,000 Records

This data breach was reported in early December. DCA is a third-party vendor that supports over 320 affiliated facilities across 20 states. On October 11, some suspicious activity was reported that spurred an investigation. Upon inquiring, it was found out that hackers gained access on September 18 that lasted until October 13. The reports reveal that patient names, billing details, bank account numbers, and health insurance data may have been compromised.

Medical Identity Theft

Medical identity theft is a crime that occurs when fraudsters acquire information of patients and use it for claiming health insurance and other benefits. This fraud results in erroneous entries in the facility’s records and a list of fictitious medical records is created in the victim’s name. Data breaches and ransomware attacks generally result in identity theft and the staggering numbers are raising concerns for regulatory authorities now.

Laws for Countering Crime in the Healthcare Sector

Certain rules and regulations have been structured to ensure the security of all the stakeholders in the healthcare sector. Let’s take a look at some of the regulations that are assisting the health industry in securing facilities.

NHS Good Practices Guidance

NHS Good Practices Guidance provides guidelines about patient verification and their representatives for online services. This guideline provides three identity verification methods; vouching, vouching with confirmation, and identity documents, authorisation guidelines, details of the identity verification process, record keeping, etc.

HIPAA Act 1996

The act has five rules as security measures of patients’ identity; privacy rule, transaction and set rule, security rule, employer identifier rule and enforcement rule. On December 10, 2020, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released changes to the HIPAA privacy rule. These changes emphasize on strengthening the access of individuals to their information, greater caregiver involvement, and improving access to PHI.

How to Secure the Healthcare Sector?

Securing the healthcare sector is the utmost need of the hour and the industry requires robust identity verification measures to secure patients from medical identity theft. Know Your Patient verification is one solution for ensuring that every patient that requires your facility’s attention is legitimate. KYP is recommended by state laws and in case not employing this ID verification check, hefty penalties have been settled as well. According to the aforementioned regulations, the healthcare facilities must follow the patient identification protocols. With KYP, you can ensure:

Medical identity fraud prevention

Responsible selling of prescription drugs

Better compliance with regulations

Maintain updated patient records

To protect your facility from data breaches, you need a secure data storage service like on-premises service. This does not store any patient’s information over third-party cloud storage and only the hospital or clinic’s personnel can access it.

Summing It Up

All in all, healthcare has become the primary target of fraudsters and protecting healthcare service providers is the need of the hour. Ransomware, data breaches, phishing attacks, and identity theft are on the rise. Due to the pandemic, the rate of these frauds significantly increased. In 2021, the majority of predictions are threatening for all the hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies. Fraudsters will be using the COVID-19 pandemic in their phishing attacks, whereas other frauds will become more sophisticated. Hence, a robust solution that can fight fraudsters is what this sector needs and KYP is one of the best options. It verifies the identities of all the patients who reach out to you and ensures the legitimacy of patients as well.

Get in touch with us and learn everything about Know Your Patient (KYP) verification today.

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Hazards of Ransomware are real for Cryptocurrency Miners

What is a Ransomware?

Case Studies of Ransomware via Cryptocurrencies

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Ransomware in Healthcare

GBMC Healthcare Under Ransomware Attack

Data Breach in Healthcare

DCA Alliance Breach Exposed 1,000,000 Records

Medical Identity Theft

Laws for Countering Crime in the Healthcare Sector

NHS Good Practices Guidance

HIPAA Act 1996

How to Secure the Healthcare Sector?

Summing It Up

Let’s prove your

customer’s identity

with Shuftipro.

Let’s prove your customer’s

identity with Shuftipro.

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Hazards of Ransomware are real for Cryptocurrency Miners

What is a Ransomware?

Case Studies of Ransomware via Cryptocurrencies

Recommended For You:

What are the Crimes in the Healthcare Sector?

Ransomware in Healthcare

GBMC Healthcare Under Ransomware Attack

Data Breach in Healthcare

DCA Alliance Breach Exposed 1,000,000 Records

Medical Identity Theft

Laws for Countering Crime in the Healthcare Sector

NHS Good Practices Guidance

HIPAA Act 1996

How to Secure the Healthcare Sector?

Summing It Up

Let’s prove your

customer’s identity

with Shuftipro.

Let’s prove your customer’s

identity with Shuftipro.