Grožio Chirurgija is a popular cosmetic surgery clinic from Lithuania that has managed to gain a respectable reputation among people from other European countries as well. The database of this clinic contains exposing photographies and other implicating details of people from more than 60 countries. The alarming hassle began circulating around Grožio Chirurgija when hackers took advantage of weak security measures of this clinic and contrived a crisis. In total, nearly 25 thousand confidential details were obtained by crooks and recently, when Grožio Chirurgija refused to pay the demanded ransom, these details started to circulate on the dark web.
According to security researchers that analyzed this incident from a deeper perspective, some concerning conclusions have derived. As it appears, Lithuania is still one of those countries that neglects the existence of hackers and their massive influence on the Internet. Numbers of private and government facilities have been determined to handle their cybersecurity quite recklessly, meaning that sophisticated hackers would not take long to imitate an attack which was done against Grožio Chirurgija. Next potential targets could include traveling agencies, other private doctors’ clinics and tons of other unprotected services.
The story behind the data breach of Grožio Chirurgija is yet to be unraveled. Experts assume that there is a number of ways that hackers could have exploited to gain access, but it is possible that the leakage of information occurred accidentally. However, the fact that a ransom was demanded at some point suggests that this might have been a targeted attack.
The ransom that hackers required Grožio Chirurgija to pay will startle you: 300 BTC. This sum is translated into approximately 732945 US dollars and 655327.91 euro since this currency is found in Lithuania. The clinic refused to abide by the rules of crooks. Desperate for money, they turned to other potential parties to blackmail: patients themselves. As it appears, clients of the surgery clinic received threats, inappropriate text messages, requiring them to pay ransoms from 50 to 2.000 euros if they wish to keep their information from the dark web.
The director of Grožio Chirurgija Jonas Staikunas was extremely apologetic about the whole incident. This breach is a clear recipe for scandal since tons of celebrities or important public figures might have been clients of this surgery clinic. The stolen credentials include nude photos, passport scans, national insurance numbers and other confidential details. Since clients’ have received threats via text messages, there is almost no doubt that telephone numbers were also a part of the breach.
Grožio Chirurgija is encouraging people to be extremely careful. If anyone attempts to buy stolen credentials from the dark web, the repercussions are explained to be severe. Currently, 50 BTC are the indicated price for the full database that have been stolen by crooks. This is a clear decrease from the primary demands that were five times bigger. Attacking a clinic is obviously a very vicious decision since the database includes data that could profoundly hurt certain individuals.
Source: theguardian.com
