Recently, the cybercrime landscape has felt the presence of Quantum ransomware again after it compromised a particular group of organisations. A finance company reported the ransomware campaign last February, which resulted in a massive data intrusion.
The data breach impacted approximately 650 health organisations and left thousands of persons prone to malicious attacks from other actors.
The finance company has given a PDF file containing the names of more than 600 health entities tied to the Quantum ransomware attack. The malicious threat actors have accessed multiple files that include every affected individual’s personal information.
The most notable exposed personal information included several patients’ full names, permanent addresses, accounts receivable balance, and payment transactions to accounts.
In addition, several files also consisted of social security numbers (SSNs), health insurance, medical treatment information, and dates of birth. Security experts claimed that the members of the Quantum ransomware group were behind the attack that occurred last February. However, the finance company that reported about the attack has not officially claimed, admitted, nor confirmed the allegations to the group.
Some researchers said that the Quantum ransomware gang is a rebrand of the 2020 ransomware group called MountLocker.
According to researchers, the MountLocker ransomware operation, initially utilised by the threat actors in operations a couple of years ago, was rebranded as the Quantum ransomware. Some members of the Conti ransomware operations have either compromised or transferred to the Quantum ransomware group after its shutdown.
However, some researchers believed that the rebranding of Quantum was just a ploy of Conti’s new operating method. Other researchers think Conti’s members have voluntarily shifted their allegiance after witnessing the downfall of the ransomware operation.
The constant attacks on healthcare firms are severely impacting the workflow of hospitals and other health providers. Moreover, the healthcare sector has seen the second-highest attack recovery cost, reaching nearly $2 million across all industries.
Unfortunately, the non-stop ransomware attacks expose the patient’s private data and financial information, which can put the industry in danger, such as suffering another data breach incident soon.
