The new favorite target for hackers? Hospitals. And that'scomforting news in the war against cyber crime, said no oneever.

Researchers at the security firm Websense tell the MIT Technology Review that cyberattacks on hospitals have risen 600% in the last 10months.

Much of that increase can be traced back to the cyberattack on Community Health Systems, where military-run Chinesehackers stole 4.5 million non-medical data records from 206hospitals in 29 states. Filing a report with the SEC on Aug 18, thehealthcare company acknowledged that the breaches occured in Apriland June.

Websense blames the Heartbleed bug, which exposed half of amillion servers, for many of the breaches. The firm warns thatpatient records remain vulnerable still, as many hospitals have notimplemented the Heartbleed patch.

According to the MIT Technology Review, hackers are turning tohospitals because security firewalls are easy to breach and thepayoff is hundrends of thousands of data records.

John Halamka, chief information officer and dean of technologyfor the Harvard Medical School, tells the MIT Technology Reviewthat the healthcare industry spends far less on IT compared toother industries. And whereas credit card numbers and socialsecurity numbers bring in relatively little cash on the blackmarket, the data from health records is a gold mine, particularlyfor the un- and underinsured who want to obtain a better quality ofmedical care.

As for the breach commited on Aug. 18 by Chinese hackers, theSEC and Community Health Systems theorize that because medicalrecords and personal identification was not stolen, a possiblemotive for the hack was to acquire product development plans,manufacturing techniques, business plans and emails to seniorexecutives. In short, the hackers want information that will helpChinese companies become more competitive.

China has denied the accusations, but the U.S. Dept of Justice has secured criminalindictments on five of the alledged hackers.