The Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Perth is investigating a major cyber security incident.
The institute confirmed it had identified a “cyber incident impacting our internal servers.”. The Medusa ransomware gang claims to have successfully stolen more than four terabytes of data from the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research in Western Australia. The gang made the claim in a post on its darkweb leak site, saying that “4.6 TB of internal building camera recordings have been uploaded.”.
Medusa is demanding a US$500,000 ransom, though it is willing to sell the data to anyone for a similar price. A countdown on the site points to a ransom deadline of around 12 July, though that date can be extended for a payment of US$10,000. The gang also shared what it said was a file tree of the data, which appears to show the private IP addresses of several video devices as well as the dates that the videos were recorded.
The file tree features 33,996 lines of data, with all but five of them appearing to be video files. A spokesperson for the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research confirmed the institute was investigating the incident.
“The Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (the Perkins) has identified a cyber incident impacting our internal servers,” a spokesperson told Cyber Daily.
“We immediately engaged cyber security advisers and experts to guide our response. The Perkins team has been working around the clock with these external cyber security experts to investigate the matter and re-establish secure network access to our facilities. We have also been working to determine the nature and extent of the data that has been affected.”
The spokesperson said the institute has informed the Australian Cyber Security Centre and is taking “all reasonable steps to work with law enforcement and privacy regulators as required.”.
“The safety and privacy of our employees, researchers, tenants, and supporters is our first priority.”
According to the institute’s About page, “The Perkins was established in 1998 to unify Western Australian scientists in a collaborative research powerhouse. In the years since, we have grown to become one of the nation’s leading medical research centres, where a close-knit team of more than 250 research and trial staff work together to defeat the major diseases that impact our community—diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and rare genetic diseases.”.
The Perkins operates out of two hospital campuses in Perth, one at the QEII Medical Centre in Nedlands and the second at the Fiona Stanley Hospital Campus in Murdoch.