India's Star Health Hit by Ransom Demand After Data Leak

Star Health has received a US$68,000 ransom demand from a cyberhacker, following a customer data and medical records leak.

Star Health is headquartered in Chennai. The company was founded in 2006 and offers insurance for health, personal accident and travel. Star Health is India's biggest healthcare insurer and has a US$4bn market cap - but all of that is now in jeopardy. 

A cyberhacker used Telegram chatbots to leak customers' private data, including tax details and medical claim papers. Internal investigations by Star Health have already taken legal action against Telegram and the so-far unknown hacker, whose website has published some of Star Health’s customer data. 

As a result of this cyber attack, Star Health’s shares have already declined by 11%. This is a sad reminder to the healthcare sector of how dangerous cyber attacks can be to profit and public image. 

As cyber attacks focused on confidential healthcare data continue to be a lucrative option for cyber criminals, experts across cyber, healthcare and IT are working diligently to protect customers. 

The role of cyber insurance in healthcare

Chris Henderson runs threat operations and internal security for network security company Huntress. It is his team's task to observe the activity of threat actors and ensure Huntress’ clients are defended. 

“In cyber insurance, you’re working against an adversary capable of developing and pivoting faster than a policy might expire,” Chris told Healthcare Digital. “So, cyber insurers are building more insight into how they model risk during the underwriting process.”

To offer the best protection, cyber insurers are emphasising help desk verification and strong authentication, using tools like multi-factor authentication (MFA). These are reshaping the requirements from cyber insurers. 

“Cyber insurers are looking to ensure that your IT help desk has written procedures/policies to dictate that the person calling to reset a password, set up MFA and so on, is who they say they are,” Chris added.

TCS: The rise of AI in healthcare expands the attack surface for cybercriminals

Nitin Kumar, VP of Healthcare at Tata Consultancy Services, says it’s clear that AI offers opportunities and challenges in healthcare. Although AI improves access and affordability in healthcare, it also poses problems, such data privacy and security. Yet, AI also plays a crucial role in addressing these issues.

“Among our customers, we see an increased adoption of AI and in any AI initiative, there is a vast amount of sensitive data that is required,” Nitin states. “These include patient records, medical images, genomic information besides others. To effectively safeguard this data, our customers are keen on exploring innovative approaches such as homomorphic encryptions.

“Our customers are increasingly adopting AI-driven solutions on interconnected devices and systems, such as IoT medical devices, telemedicine platforms and cloud-based services. Each of the connected devices or systems introduces potential entry points for cybercriminals.”

To address customer needs, TCS is actively researching and developing quantum-resistant algorithms and encryption techniques to safeguard sensitive information.

“We will help our customers harness the benefits of AI while minimising the risks,” Nitin concludes. “Secure and Privacy by design for AI systems for healthcare is the mantra with a fine balance between security vs privacy vs latency vs usability vs accuracy.”

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