Hacker Faces 55 Years for Stealing Medical Database
Yeah, that HIPAA regulations aimed at privacy sure do have some stiff penalties. You simply don’t mess around with patient and doctor information. A hacker named Bill Bailey swiped the membership database from the American College of Physicians.
From the Register Here:
A man has been charged with stealing the membership database of the American College of Physicians (ACP) for resale as a premium spamming list.
William Bailey Jr, 46, of Charlotte, North Carolina, faces a possible fine of up to $2.75m and a maximum sentence of up to 55 years if he’s convicted of gaining unauthorised access to the database of 80,000 US doctors and medics.
Bailey ran a website called dr-411.com that allegedly peddled the email addresses of members of professional organisations such as doctors, lawyers and real estate agents.
Bailey allegedly obtained this data after hacking into the ACP’s membership database, in disregard of warnings over the sensitivity of the information, between January and May 2005.
This scumbag was going to sell the stolen data to other spammers for mega cash. Now his family is going to be singing that old song, “Won’t you come home Bill Bailey, Won’t you come home?” Hat tip to Steve Gold’s Security Watch for the story.
