Image Credit: Global National

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: Paying ransom to LifeLabs hackers might encourage further attacks

Dec 18, 2019 | 5:45 AM

LIFELABS REVEALED YESTERDAY that information on 15 million customers was hacked in late October, mostly in Ontario and B.C.

Given the massive number of files, it’s safe to say thousands of them probably belong to Kamloops residents.

I called the number provided by LifeLabs and was told those files go as far back as 10 years.

However, they couldn’t tell me if any of my files were among those stolen. They’d only be able to tell me that if my personal information was published by the hacker.

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That’s not very comforting. The first thing we do in such a situation is to look for somebody to blame and the obvious first choice here is LifeLabs.

When the company assures us it discovered the breach through “pro-active surveillance” it means nothing more than that an app noticed it. That said, criticisms of the length of time it took between the discovery and the public announcement are over-stated.

After it did figure things out, LifeLabs was on it like a blanket, trying to protect the information from exposure, preventing secondary attacks and bringing in cyber detectives to help out.

All of that takes time and six weeks is reasonable. We couldn’t have done anything about it if we’d known earlier, anyway.

What’s unsettling, though, is that LifeLabs paid a ransom to keep the information from being published. Yes, the company did so in order to protect its customers but what will it mean in future? Cyber ransom is exploding, and every time a ransom is paid, it ensures there will be more attacks.

One can imagine the uproar if the files had been published on some rogue website but, in trying to do the right thing, LifeLabs may have given encouragement to other hackers.

——

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.