# The cat's out of the bag, pay the man to put it back in

**URL:** <https://www.twit.community/t/the-cats-out-of-the-bag-pay-the-man-to-put-it-back-in/4730>\
**Category:** General Discussion\
**Created:** [December 18, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://www.twit.community/t/the-cats-out-of-the-bag-pay-the-man-to-put-it-back-in/4730 "2019-12-18T22:04:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PHolder](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/www.twit.community/pholder/32/2439_2.png) [@PHolder](https://www.twit.community/u/PHolder)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://www.twit.community/t/the-cats-out-of-the-bag-pay-the-man-to-put-it-back-in/4730/1 "2019-12-18T22:04:03Z")

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Unfortunately this affects my household ☹ In Ontario, Canada, our only choice for lab services is to go to a private provider who bills the public health system for the services. I guess the government thought a private institution would be better at its job that public employees. (More likely they get paid less to do the same work as public employees, but this message is not about that issue.)

In any case, the question is whether one believes that paying a ransom means the data is actually “recovered”. I think they paid the ransom to avoid embarrassment, which didn’t work because now it’s in the news. I imagine if the bad guys think they can find someone else willing to pay for it (an insurance company maybe) that they still have a copy. (Although maybe they really did destroy it to eliminate liability if the cops find them?)

> **[Hackers steal data for 15 million patients, then sell it back to lab that...](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/clinical-lab-pays-hackers-for-the-return-of-data-of-15-million-patients/)**
>
> LifeLabs said it negotiated with hackers after they demanded a ransom.