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WA: Therapist notifies clients after tricked by a hacker

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Dissent

Some breaches may be more embarrassing to admit to than others. Kudos to this therapist for forthrightly informing the Washington state attorney general what happened:

I am writing to advise you of a computer data breach, which occurred from December 2 to December 4, 2022. I was contacted by a person representing himself as an employee of the Iolo Software Company (the company whose virus software I use on my two business computers). I had purchased an additional encryption program from Iolo, which had mysteriously vanished from my computer with records that were stored within it. A hacker called and stated that the Iolo company was aware that my computer had been hacked and he offered to access my computers to clean any viruses and malware. I granted him access. On December 4, 2022, when he asked me to purchase eBay cards worth $300, I realized it had been a scam.

The Thurston County Sheriffs Department is investigating the breach. Today, I completed mailing out 640 letters to current and former clients whose information may have been compromised. I have paid for legal ads to be run in the Whidbey News Times, South Whidbey Record, Anacortes American, and the Seattle Times. I move to Olympia two years ago, having lived on Whidbey Island since 1975. My practice started in 2001, so approximately 97% of the 902 client affected live on Whidbey Island or Anacortes. Currently, I am doing telehealth counseling only.

The full notification to the state with a copy of the notification to individuals by Robert S Miller, LICSW, ACSW, PLLC can be found on Washington State’s breach site. 

In response to the incident, the provider took a number of steps:

To further investigate the breach, mitigate harm, and to prevent something like this from happening again, we are taking the following steps: implementing additional technical security measures, including adopting encryption technologies; changing and strengthening passwords; reporting this event to law enforcement; removing all client information from our computers; having our computers accessed by a security software company to remove any viruses or malware; and providing identify theft protection to clients whose records contained social security numbers.

Related posts:

  • Dentrix claims it encrypts their data, but does it?
Category: HackHealth DataPhishingU.S.

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