The Canadian
health diagnostics firm LifeLabs reported it payed cybercriminals an undisclosed
amount of money to retrieve customer data stolen in a recent cyberattack.
LifeLabs president
and CEO Charles Brown said the decision to pay the malicious actors was taken
in in collaboration with cybersecurity experts familiar who handle cyberattacks
and negotiations with cybercriminals. The data accessed in the attack included name,
address, email, login, passwords, date of birth, health card number and lab
test results, the company
said.
LifeLabs did not describe how or when the attack took place, but said the database accessed contained information on about 15 million of its customers, most of whom are from British Columbia and Ontario with a few in other provinces. The lab test results involved cover 85,000 from Ontario from 2016 and earlier.
Gloss