Advanced Penetration Testing

Chapter 1Medical Records (In)security

This first chapter shows how the simplest of attacks can be used to compromise the most secure data, which makes it a logical place to start, particularly as the security of medical data has long been an issue that's keeping the CIOs of hospitals awake at night.

THE “KANE” INCIDENT

The theft or even alteration of patient data had been a looming menace long before Dutchman “Kane” compromised Washington University's Medical Center in 2000. The hospital at the time believed they had successfully detected and cut off the attack, a belief they were rudely disabused of six months later when Kane shared the data he'd taken with Security Focus journalist Kevin Poulsen, who subsequently published an article describing the attack and its consequences. This quickly became global news. Kane was able to stay hidden in the Medical Center networks by allowing his victims to believe they had expelled him. He did this by leaving easily discoverable BO2K Remote Access Trojans (a tool developed by the hacker group, “Cult of the Dead Cow” and popular around the turn of the century) on several of the compromised servers while his own command and control infrastructure was somewhat more discrete. The entire episode is well documented online and I suggest you read up on it, as it is both an excellent example of an early modern APT and a textbook case of how not to deal with an intrusion—procedurally and publicly.

See the original article at http://www.securityfocus.com/news/122 ...