TECHNOLOGY crime police are tracking down foreign cyber criminals who mounted a ransomware attack on Saraburi Hospital with other hospitals and government agencies also likely to be similarly hit, Thai Rath newspaper reported today (Sep. 10, 2020)
Minister of Digital Economy and Society Putthipong Punnakan and Deputy Police Chief Pol. Gen. Suwat Chaengyodsuk have sent specialists in this field to work with this hospital’s team in gathering all the details.
It has been initially discovered that the ransomware came from a foreign country and that the criminals are working very systematically. It is also known that other hospitals and government agencies have been similarly attacked, only that they have not filed a complaint.
While the cyber criminals have not yet demanded a ransom from Saraburi Hospital, it is believed they would do so in the coming days and have already demanded similar payment from other places and some of them had already partly paid up.
Pol. Maj. Gen. Pattana Nuchnaroj, head of the Thailand’s Action Taskforce for Information Technology Crime Suppression (Tactics), said investigation techniques include studying previous behavioral patterns with the probe still at the stage of collecting the details.
He added that this is something new for his team even though it has happened in other countries and perhaps even in Thailand and they have to learn new things.
Even though some companies have offered special tools to track down these cyber criminals, it is still uncertain whether they would be able to obtain the required feedback. However these tools might show some traces of their criminal activities with this helping discover how the ransomware was sent in and once in the system how it works.
While confident of making progress in this case, Pol. Maj. Gen. Pattana urged anyone with knowledge in this field to contact his unit to help out for the sake of the country.
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