Hacker puts 650K U.S. patient records up for sale

A hacker has stolen databases from three U.S. healthcare organizations and has advertised more than 650,000 patient records as up for sale.

The hacker, who goes by the name of “thedarkoverlord,” is also holding the records for ransom, asking the as-yet-unnamed healthcare organizations to pay $100,000, $205,000 and $411,000 for the databases, according to two published reports.

The hacker has described the databases as coming from Farmington, Mo, (48,000 patients), the central/midwest states (210,000 patients) and Georgia (397,000 patients).

The data breach and subsequent online sale was originally reported by the news site Deep Dot Web; patient records include those of Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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