The previous chief working officer of a cybersecurity firm has pleaded responsible to hacking two hospitals, a part of the Gwinnett Medical Middle (GMC), in June 2021 to spice up his firm’s enterprise.
Vikas Singla, who labored for Securolytics, a community safety firm that offered companies to the healthcare trade, pleaded responsible to hacking into the methods of GMC Northside Hospital hospitals in Duluth and Lawrenceville, as prosecutors mentioned in a June 2021 indictment.
Throughout his assault on September 27, 2018, he disrupted the well being supplier’s telephone and community printer companies, and he stole the non-public info of greater than 200 sufferers from a Hologic R2 Digitizer digitizing machine related to a mammogram machine on GMC’s Lawrenceville hospital.
On the identical day, Singla used over 200 printers within the GMC hospital in Duluth to print stolen affected person info and “WE OWN YOU” messages.
“The Defendant makes an attempt to create and use publicity in regards to the assault, together with by inflicting the publication of knowledge obtained with out authorizations from the Digitiaze, to generate enterprise for Securolytics,” the responsible plea reads.
Singla “promoted” the GMC hack on Twitter, tweeting the names, dates of beginning, and sexes of 43 sufferers whose knowledge had been stolen within the breach. Securolytics additionally reached out potential purchasers after Singla’s assault, highlighting the GMC incident within the emails.
Prosecutors ask for 57 months of probation
“This cyberattack on a hospital not solely may have had disastrous penalties, however affected person’s private info was additionally compromised,” mentioned Chris Hacker, Particular Agent in Cost of FBI Atlanta.
“The FBI and our regulation enforcement companions are decided to carry accountable, those that allegedly put peoples well being and security in danger whereas pushed by greed.”
Singla was charged with 17 counts of intentional injury to a protected pc and one depend of acquiring info from a protected pc. Prosecutors say that the defendant’s assault on GMC’s ASCOM telephone system, printers, and digitizer resulted in additional than $817,000 in monetary losses.
He has now agreed to pay over $817,000 plus curiosity in restitution to the Northside Hospital Gwinnett in Lawrenceville and the Ace American Insurance coverage Firm as a part of the plea deal.
The prosecutors will advocate a sentence of 57 months probation, together with dwelling detention, based mostly on Singla being recognized with “a uncommon and incurable type of most cancers” and “a doubtlessly harmful vascular situation,” which warrant “dwelling detention as an alternative choice to incarceration” in order that the defendant can obtain applicable medical care.
The choose can impose a most time period of imprisonment of 10 years throughout the sentencing listening to scheduled for February 15, 2024.
