In November, Hunters International claimed that they had attacked Covenant Care. Since that time, they have been leaking what appears to be more and more patients’ protected health information (PHI) and employees’ personal information.
Covenant Care operates services providing skilled nursing, residential care, therapy services, and home health care at 29 locations in California and Nevada.
There is no notice on their website about any data security incident and nothing posted on HHS’s public breach tool. According to Hunters, they encrypted files, but there is nothing on Covenant Care’s site that indicates any disruption in services or care at all.
Covenant Care did not respond to an inquiry submitted to it on November 30 about the claimed attack. A second inquiry was submitted to them today, asking if they have notified patients that their protected health information is being leaked on the dark web, and if they haven’t, will they be disclosing that to patients.
No reply was immediately provided.
Covenant Care has previously experienced other cyberattacks affecting patient data:
- On March 6, 2019, on behalf of “relevant affiliated nursing facilities,” they notified HHS that 7,678 patients were affected by a phishing incident that affected 10,831 individuals. HHS’s closing statement noted that the protected health information (PHI) involved included names, dates of birth, dates of death, Social Security numbers, medical record numbers, health insurance information, clinical information, and treatment information. “As a result of this breach, CCC implemented additional technical and administrative safeguards to better protect its PHI. Affected individuals were offered free credit monitoring and identity theft restoration services. OCR also provided CCC with technical assistance regarding its security management process and obtained assurances that CCC implemented the corrective actions noted above.”
- On May 6, 2022, on behalf of Wagner Heights Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Covenant Care notified HHS that 23,093 patients were affected by a phishing incident in February 2022. The PHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, claims and financial information, medications, diagnoses, and other treatment information. HHS’s closing statement notes that “In response to the breach, the CE provided complimentary credit monitoring services and implemented additional administrative, technical, and security safeguards. Staff were retrained on email security.”
- Weeks later, Covenant Care reported that yet another of its facilities was compromised in a phishing incident on the same date as the Wagner Heights incident: Rehabfocus Home Health, Inc., the licensee of Focus Health, a home health agency. DataBreaches could not find any listing for this incident on HHS’s public breach tool.
Both of the 2022 incidents were reported by LegalScoops.
In light of Covenant’s past phishing attacks, DataBreaches asked Hunters International whether it had gained access via a phishing attack. A spokesperson responded, “No,” but added, “They have a very weak network. And it was very easy to “move along.”
DataBreaches will continue to monitor this incident.