Sony Hackers Send NHS Friendly Warning

Over the last month or so, Sony has been bombarded by hackers. A single group has been behind a huge number of the hacks but is in the news for a hack of a different nature today.

A group of hackers that goes by the name of Lulzsec this week warned the NHS that its network was vulnerable to cyber attack. How? By sending the healthcare system admin passwords it claims to have stolen months ago.

"In celebration of little girls getting bigger bones, we're now emailing NHS and informing them of those admin passwords we took months ago," the group said via its Twitter account, adding, "Because if we fucked over those that give health, people would literally die laughing at our antics. Poor lungs = poor lulz, people."

Lulzsec gave a small amount of detail into the hack later on in the day, and explained that it never meant any harm.

"Subdomain NHS access compromised 5 core admins and contact info of several affiliates. Luckily they stored nothing of importance on that DB," the group said.

"And no, we never planned to exploit those passwords. We sit on admin passwords for many things. It's kind of like a lulz collection," it said in another post.

The group also posted the following screenshot of the email it sent to the NHS. It reads:

Greetings [redacted],

We’re a somewhat known band of pirate-ninjas that go by Lulzsec.

Some times ago, we were traversing the internets for signs of enemy fleets.

While you aren’t considered an enemy - you work is of course brilliant - we did stumble upon several of your admin passwords which are as follows:

[redacted]

We mean you no harm and only want to help you fix your tech issues. Also, we hope that little girl feasts on the bones of many living souls.

All the best,

Lulz Security

The NHS insists that it’s a 'local issue' affecting only a limited number of website admins.

"This is a local issue affecting a very small number of website administrators. No patient information has been compromised," a Department of Health spokesperson told the BBC.

"No national NHS information systems have been affected. The Department has issued guidance to the local NHS about how to protect and secure all their information assets."