Gadgetory

hey everyone welcome to the inside scoop I'm cnet's car i cboy joined by senior writer Seth Rosenblatt hi Cara hey Seth so today we've learned that a major medical group has been hacked yes I some Chinese hackers yes tell us about the the breach so the group was hacked by unknown Chinese hackers using what's called an advanced persistent threat which means that the group uses a variety of techniques to get at specific information and they're not looking just to get financial data they're looking to get specifics from whatever database they're going after 206 hospitals were affected 4.5 million personal records and this was community hospital services that just name the group yes and how many states I think was 29 states okay and the information that the hackers were after it's not really clear they didn't get anybody's medical records it looks like it was just a names email addresses Social Security numbers and that's actually enough if you can identify them to other similar addresses or names you could probably wind up creating credit cards in that person's name or doing other kinds of identity theft techniques so what if you're one of the people who has been affected 4.5 million people what can you do to protect yourself that's a good question unfortunately right now I don't think there's a lot that you can do besides keeping an eye on your name as it appears you know on the internet keep an eye on your personal records make sure that you there's no charges to your credit card that no extra cards get sent out and just be vigilant and it's it's a little bit scary but it's unfortunately all that you can do at the moment and it seems like there's nothing that these people could have done to protect themselves proactively you know and that's really what I think the big problem here is that this is another example of a company that has a lot of personal information that is not taking the necessary steps to protect it and to protect their customers in this case it's hospitals they could have been going after a specific senior executive that's a very common technique for advanced persistent attacks but honestly it's hard to tell right now so what do we know about this hacking group and what their motivation might have been like you said an executive or just to kind of send a message to the American government to show me details we really don't have any details on this particular group there's certainly a lot of news about Chinese hackers they're not all the same group and we don't really know anything about this one at the moment whether it's connected to their government or not right exactly okay so in the meantime just to keep an eye on your information and keep an eye on your information if you do have to go to a hospital it's a good idea to ask them what they do to protect your information it may not actually gain you any information but it lets them know that you're aware of what's going on great good tips Thank You Seth Rosenblatt senior writer I'm Kara Tsuboi thanks for watching the inside scoop