Whistleblower Web site Wikileaks.org last Sunday who said that the secure site for Virginia's Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) had been broken into by a hacker making a US$10 million ransom demand.

The alleged ransom note posted on the Virginia PMP site claimed that the hacker had backed up and encrypted more than 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions and then deleted the original data.

"Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh," the hacker is supposed to have said in his note, a copy of which was available on Wikileaks. "For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password," for decrypting the data, the supposed hacker wrote.

The expletive-laden note goes on to say that authorities have seven days to decide if they will "pony up" the money. If the ransom is not paid, "I'll go ahead and put this baby out on the market and accept the highest bid," the note says.

The hacker admits that while he is unsure about the worth of the data or who would want it, "I'm bettin' someone will. Hell, if I can't move the prescription data at the very least I can find a buyer for the personal data," the hacker said pointing to the fact that the data included patients' names, ages, addresses, Social Security and driver's license numbers.