Officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are investigating how the personal information of 1,000 former patients was left unsecured on a hospital computer.
Hospital officials said they were notified of the breach on May 21 by an outside company. Few details are available, but investigators say the information may have been disclosed via a peer to peer (P2P) network.
“Preliminary results of an on-going investigation have identified a computer from which the data was apparently compromised,” the hospital said in a statement.
In a message on the Walter Reed website, Col. Patricia Horoho, commander of the Walter Reed Health Care System shed some light on how the information was compromised.
“I need everyone to ensure that they are not loading or downloading programs that are not authorized by the command as it increases our vulnerability and possibly can cause a breach in protected information being shared,” Horoho said.
The message was addressed to Team WRAMC and was posted on the Walter Reed website this morning, but has recently been removed.
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