{"id":58736,"date":"2025-05-30T17:35:07","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T17:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/us-medical-org-pays-50m-to-settle-case-after-crims-raided-data-and-threatened-to-swat-cancer-patients\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T17:35:07","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T17:35:07","slug":"us-medical-org-pays-50m-to-settle-case-after-crims-raided-data-and-threatened-to-swat-cancer-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/us-medical-org-pays-50m-to-settle-case-after-crims-raided-data-and-threatened-to-swat-cancer-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"US medical org pays $50M+ to settle case after crims raided data and threatened to swat cancer patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Seattle cancer facility has agreed to fork out around $52.5 million as part of a class action settlement linked to a Thanksgiving 2023 cyberattack where criminals directly threatened cancer patients with swat attacks.<\/p>\n

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (Fred Hutch) disclosed its November 2023 attack a month later, after it confirmed that criminals had made off with personal and sensitive data, including health insurance information, patients’ treatments, diagnoses, lab results, and more.<\/p>\n

That data was then used by the attackers in question to carry out highly aggressive extortion tactics<\/a>, which according to the original class action complaint<\/a> [PDF], allegedly included directly contacting some patients via email and threatening to swat them. The complaint claimed:<\/p>\n

The FBI was called in.<\/p>\n

Cybercriminals often use pilfered data as a bargaining chip with the organization from which it was stolen: pay up or we publish your data \u2013 that’s the way it usually goes.<\/p>\n