The hacker responsible for illegally accessing MacKay Memorial Hospital’s systems and trying to sell patients’ personal information after a failed ransom attempt is a Chinese national named Lo Chengyu (羅政宇), residing in China’s Zhejiang Province, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau said it has forwarded the case to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday and has issued a wanted notice for Lo.
Lo is accused of contravening articles 346, 359 and 360 of the Criminal Code and the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Photo: AP
Lo’s wanted status makes him the first Chinese hacker who Taiwanese authorities have identified.
MacKay Memorial Hospital was attacked on Feb. 6 by ransomware uploaded by Lo, who went by the pseudonym of Crazyhunter, the bureau’s High-Tech Crime Center Director-General Rufus Lin (林建隆) said.
Lo demanded a ransom of US$100,000, which the hospital refused, Lin said.
The hacker then put the personal information of about 16.6 million hospital patients on sale on Feb. 28, which prompted the hospital to report the hacking to the Taipei City Police Department’s Zhongshan Precinct, Lin said.
The case was jointly investigated by the Taipei City Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division and the center, Lin said.
Investigators found that 11 establishments had been targeted in cybercrime cases in the past two months, and the malware coding and methods were similar, Lin said.
Police traced the Internet protocols from these cases to Lo, a 20-year-old Zhejiang resident working at an Internet security firm, he said.
Lo had demanded a total of US$800,000 to US$2.5 million from all establishments and received at least US$1 million in illegal proceeds, the bureau said.
Lo’s actions undermined Taiwan’s social order, and his demand for ransom was a psychological threat to Taiwanese, it said.
Additional reporting by Chiu Chun-fu
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