Abington Reproductive Medicine

Summary

The Maze Team ransomware group added a medical practice to their dedicated leak site, claiming to have compromised the organization's data. However, the proof provided by the threat actors had no connection to any medical practice, raising uncertainty about whether the group actually attacked the facility or simply uploaded incorrect evidence as proof of their claims. Inquiries sent to the practice went unanswered, and the entity (now operating under a different name) has not posted any public notice about a potential breach. No notification appears on the HHS public breach tool or on relevant state attorney general sites, leaving patients and regulators without confirmation of what data may have been exposed or whether any protected health information was actually involved in the incident.

Motives

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TTPs

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Description

Abington Reproductive Medicine, a medical practice that has since rebranded as Sincera, was listed on the dedicated leak site operated by the Maze Team ransomware threat actors. The practice became part of the public leak site landscape during a year when Maze pioneered the practice of publicly naming victims and dumping stolen data to pressure them into paying ransom demands. DataBreaches.net, which maintained ongoing surveillance of these leak sites, included Abington Reproductive Medicine among ten incidents it documented from Maze's listings in 2020.

A notable element of the Abington listing was the nature of the "proof" that the Maze actors uploaded to substantiate their claim of having compromised the practice. According to DataBreaches.net, the proof materials had nothing to do with any medical practice at all, raising questions about whether Maze actually attacked Abington and simply uploaded incorrect files, or whether the listing was erroneous for another reason. This ambiguity regarding the authenticity or accuracy of the dumped materials stood out among the Maze incidents documented in the report.

DataBreaches.net attempted to contact the practice directly to ascertain what had occurred and how they were handling any potential compromise. The site sent two inquiries to Abington (now operating as Sincera), but the practice did not reply to either communication. As of the publication date of the DataBreaches.net report on November 8, 2020, there was no notice or statement posted on the practice's website alerting patients or the public to any cybersecurity incident. Additionally, there was no indication that the practice had filed a report with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' public breach tool, which is the central repository for HIPAA breach disclosures affecting 500 or more individuals. No press release or media notice had been issued by the practice that DataBreaches.net could identify.

The broader context surrounding the Abington Reproductive Medicine listing reflects the evolving tactics of ransomware operators in the healthcare sector during 2020. Maze Team, which initiated the model of combining encryption-based ransom demands with data extortion, was eventually reported to have announced the closure of their "project" shortly before the DataBreaches.net report was published in November 2020. Some observers suggested that Maze actors had transitioned to operating under the Egregor brand, a connection Maze publicly denied. Among the ten Maze listings DataBreaches.net examined, the report noted that notifications, statements, or public disclosures could only be confirmed for four of the entities, indicating that Abington was among the majority that had not produced verifiable public communications about their incident.

The DataBreaches.net analysis of 30 ransomware incidents across multiple threat actor groups—including Conti, Maze, AKO (later rebranded as Ranzy), REvil/Sodinokibi, Nefilim, SunCrypt, Pysa, NetWalker, Egregor, Mount Locker, and DoppelPaymer—revealed that only 11 of the 30 entities had notified regulators or patients, or had posted any preliminary warning or alert to enable patients to take protective measures. This pattern of delayed or absent notification became the central concern of the report, which argued that the HIPAA standard of "without undue delay" coupled with a 60-day outer window was being interpreted in ways that left patients unaware their data had already been publicly dumped by criminals. Abington Reproductive Medicine, alongside other healthcare organizations such as Ventura Orthopedics, United Memorial Medical Center, Kristin Tarbet M.D., Olympia House, The Center for Fertility and Gynecology, Wilmington Surgical, Dyras Dental, and Med-Care Infusion Services, was specifically cited in the report as part of this larger cohort that had neither notified regulators nor issued public warnings despite appearing on dedicated leak sites.

The specific impacts of the Abington Reproductive Medicine incident—including the number of patients affected, the exact categories of data exposed, and whether protected health information was actually accessed or exfiltrated—could not be determined from the source material, given the lack of confirmation from the practice and the questionable nature of the proof materials posted by Maze. No breach report submitted to state attorneys general could be identified by DataBreaches.net.

Sources

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