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INC Ransom lists a Kiwi medical centre on its leak site, with 110 gigabytes of allegedly stolen data published to the darknet.
The INC Ransom ransomware operation has listed the Waiwhetu Medical Centre, based in Lower Hutt in New Zealand’s Wellington Region, as a victim on its darknet leak site.
In a post dated 6 June, the hackers claim to have stolen 110 gigabytes of data, including contracts, HR data, and financial information.
The entire dataset has been published, and the contents appear to confirm the hackers’ claims. The data includes patient consent forms, education and training data, and correspondence between the medical centre and other stakeholders.
The Waiwhetu Medical Centre has confirmed it is aware of the incident.
“Waiwhetu Medical Centre is aware of an incident and have notified relevant authorities, who are assisting us with our investigation. It is likely to take some time to fully understand what has happened,” a spokesperson for the medical centre told Cyber Daily.
“There is no impact to normal patient services, and we remain open to our community. If it is found that we need to notify individuals about their information, we will do so at the appropriate time. As this is an ongoing investigation, we are currently unable to provide further information.”
INC Ransom was first observed in August 2023 and has claimed attacks on a total of 328 organisations since then. The gang uses spear phishing tactics to gain initial network access and employs double-extortion techniques to pressure its victims, both encrypting the data it steals and then threatening to publish the data online.
It mostly targets entities in Europe and North America, but it has also targeted a significant number of Australian organisations. INC Ransom’s last Australian victim was fibre installation firm Expert Data Cabling, which was listed on the gang’s leak site in March. INC Ransom was also responsible for the high-profile hack of healthcare provider Spectrum Medical Imaging earlier this year. Patient data was exposed in that attack, and Spectrum is continuing to contact patients whose data may have been exposed by the hackers.
The Waiwhetu Medical Centre is a family-based healthcare organisation that operates under the korowai of Te Rūnganganui o Te Āti Awa non-profit organisation. The centre operates several clinics, has a focus on indigenous healthcare in the region, and runs regular immunisation drives.
“Our team has recently grown to include new tākuta (GPs), nēhi (nurses), a clinical pharmacist, health coach and a health improvement practitioner,” the centre said on its website.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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