Monday, June 23, 2008

Medical records - the new frontier in data theft?

Looks like supply and demand and the good old laws of economics are catching up to data breaches as well. Seems like medical records is the new black - more criminals are focusing on getting access to this rather than boring credit card numbers, bank accounts etc.

There is a related scary part to this story - (other than the fact that medical records are under active threat)

The scary part is the huge numbers of available stolen credit card, bank account information out there - this is depressing prices all over the world for this data! The laws of supply/demand are taking over and making this a commodity. For example, not too long ago, prices for a valid credit card/bank card with a pin was $100 and now with the flood of such products, the prices have come down to $10-20 range.

The logical conclusion follows that criminals are becoming so good at getting access to sensitive data - this is causing flooding in the market! They are therefore now moving up the value chain to get to even more valuable data. Presumably, stuff they can sell for more than $100!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Identity theft and medical theft both are becoming common nowadays. People must be very careful before sharing their medical records.