Identity Theft Feared as Hackers Hijack Medical Server to Play Black Ops

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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Identity Theft Feared as Hackers Hijack Medical Server to Play Black Ops

Trespassing Call of Duty players exploited an unseen vulnerability to gain access to a server containing sensitive person information.

Seacoast Radiology, a medical firm based in New Hampshire, has warned its clients to be on the lookout for possible identity theft after its servers were hacked by gamers looking to play Call of Duty: Black Ops. The server in question contained details like names, addresses, social security numbers, and medical histories for nearly quarter of a million patients.

In a message [http://www.seacoastprivacy.com/] on a site established to inform people about the breach, clients were reassured that no credit card details were contained in the records, and not every record had a social security number attached. Investigators from ID Experts, who were brought in by Seacoast to determine the cause and source of the security breach, believe that the hackers only used the server to play games, and didn't access any client information, but says that anyone affected should remain vigilant.

A system admin discovered the breach in November, after noticing an unusual drop in bandwidth. It's not known exactly how long the hackers were using the server, but the vulnerability that they exploited has since been identified and fixed. Investigators think that the people responsible could be based somewhere in Scandinavia, although they also warn that anyone capable of hacking a server is also capable of spoofing an IP address.

Hopefully, this really is just the internet equivalent of trespassing. That doesn't make it ok, but it's a lot better than the much more malicious alternative of someone actively trying to take advantage of tens of thousands of sick people.

Source: The Register [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/seacoast_radiology_server_breach/] via Gizmodo [http://gizmodo.com/5733261/gamers-hack-medical-server-to-host-a-game-of-call-of-duty-black-ops]


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DTWolfwood

Better than Vash!
Oct 20, 2009
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The dark underbelly of dedicate server support! DUM DUM DUM!!

But man thats some serious oversight in security on the medical firm. kinda disconcerting that it seems so easily hacked :(
 

Natdaprat

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Sep 10, 2009
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So wait... someone hacked a server in a medical firm to play Call of Duty? This has to be a massive troll on the hackers part. Kind of like the guy that hacked the "machine-that-might-make-a-black-hole-and-kill-us-all" just because he could.
 

Booze Zombie

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Personally, (if I was a hacker) I would've hacked into the server and left a message there along the lines of "you've got a security exploit on your server... here, you might want to fix that :)".
 

Danpascooch

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Apr 16, 2009
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This is pretty hilarious, it's like breaking into the Pentagon to throw a Kegger, it's so absurd it's funny.
 

WanderingFool

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Apr 9, 2009
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Booze Zombie said:
Personally, (if I was a hacker) I would've hacked into the server and left a message there along the lines of "you've got a security exploit on your server... here, you might want to fix that :)".
Thats an awfully kind thing to do.
 

blue spartan 11

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Oct 13, 2009
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Booze Zombie said:
Personally, (if I was a hacker) I would've hacked into the server and left a message there along the lines of "you've got a security exploit on your server... here, you might want to fix that :)".
A game a play (browser game) had an exploit like that. Everyone who clicked on a certain link in a topic created a duplicate, with the duplication link. In less then a day, the entire forum was flooded with those link topic. The most hilarious thing is that it only affacted premium subscriptions: Those guys pay to have access to a special forum. That's where the links would pop up. Now the guy is working for the company, helping them patching exploits.
 

METC

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Mar 21, 2009
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WanderingFool said:
Booze Zombie said:
Personally, (if I was a hacker) I would've hacked into the server and left a message there along the lines of "you've got a security exploit on your server... here, you might want to fix that :)".
Thats an awfully kind thing to do.
It's kind of like what happened in Diehard 4, except that was not a kind thing to do.
 

zelda2fanboy

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Oct 6, 2009
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If I had to define modern stupidity, I'd probably cite this story. A group of people smart enough to know how to hack, decide to risk jail time to break into a medical server. They do this not for monetary profit, but to play a video game that can be easily played anywhere else. Even though they could all face the same sentences if they were caught stealing info to make money, they all figured it was really worth it just to play "pew pew."
 

ChicagoTed

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Aug 5, 2010
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All that just to play black ops and people wonder why I hate the franchise as it is but as for identity theft I can tell you from personal experiance it's not a very pleasant thing to happen.
 

Charli

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Nov 23, 2008
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danpascooch said:
This is pretty hilarious, it's like breaking into the Pentagon to throw a Kegger, it's so absurd it's funny.
I was thinking something along these lines.

Wow... Just Wow.
 

Wolfram23

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Mar 23, 2004
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...okay.

Seems like just a little too much effort for having a free dedicated server for you and your buddies...
 

night_chrono

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Mar 13, 2008
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I thought black ops didn't have player run servers. That they had to be rented from treyarch for a monthly fee if you wanted to "host" your own.