On August 1, DataBreaches noticed that Parathon by JDA e-Health had been listed on the Akira ransomware leak site. Neither Akira nor Parathon responded to DataBreaches’ inquiries at the time, as DataBreaches reported on August 6.
On October 30, Parathon issued a notice of security incident. The notice stated, in part:
On July 27, 2023, Parathon detected that it was the target of a cybersecurity attack. An unauthorized third party attempted to infiltrate Parathon’s computer network and demand a ransom payment.
[…]
As a result of the incident, Parathon determined that the following personal information could have been accessed by an unauthorized third party: name, address, date of birth, and/or protected health information. The types of information affected were different for each individual, and not every individual had all of the above-list elements exposed. Importantly, the potentially exposed information does not include passwords, financial account information such as bank account numbers or credit card numbers, or social security numbers.
While the investigation found no evidence that any information has been specifically misused to date, Parathon today is mailing letters to potentially involved individuals with detail about the incident and providing resources they can use to help protect their information. Parathon is also offering potentially involved individuals access to free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through Cyberscout, a leading identity protection company.
Its December 22 letter to those affected, a copy of which was submitted to the Montana Attorney General’s Office, also included this sentence:
“We have taken all efforts possible to mitigate any further exposure of your personal information and related identity theft.”
What does “all efforts possible” mean? Does it mean they paid the ransom demand? In checking Akira’s leak site at various times since the beginning of August, DataBreaches noticed that the Parathon listing had been removed at some point.
Parathon is a business associate for numerous HIPAA-covered entities. The December 22 letter they submitted to Montana was on behalf of NorthShore University Health System. That letter does not disclose the number of affected patients for that client nor all affected patients, total. Nor is there any listing on HHS’s public breach tool from Parathon about this incident or from NorthShore University Hospital System.
So how many patients, total, have been affected by this incident that was first detected in July and has still not been fully disclosed five months later? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? DataBreaches sent another inquiry to Parathon through their website last week, asking how many patients, total, were affected by the Akira ransomware attack, whether HHS has been notified by them, and whether they paid Akira any ransom.
No reply has been received as yet.