Otolaryngology Associates, LLC (OA) has 13 locations throughout Indiana in Indianapolis, Greencastle, Greenfield, Kokomo, Noblesville, and Carmel. On April 1, the ENT (ears, nose, throat) practice notified the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of a data breach that affected 316,802 patients.
According to a notice on its website, OA became aware of the cyberattack on February 17. OA and its vendor responded quickly to try to stop the attack, and OA reports that it was never locked out of its systems.
On February 20 and 21, OA received some communications from the threat actors, who demanded payment or they would release stolen data publicly.
While OA could not determine exactly which files the threat actors had exfiltrated, they report that for the majority of affected individuals, the information impacted included billing records and did not include Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers. They write:
This billing information included first and last name, OA medical record number, a code related to the services provided, date(s) of service, treating physician name, appointment location, dollar amount of charges and name of insurance company. For some individuals, potentially impacted information may have included Social Security number, driver’s license number, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, appointment schedules, referral forms, or insurance plan numbers. For OA staff, potentially impacted information could also have included bank account and payroll information. OA has mailed notification letters to all potentially affected individuals and each letter will describe the type of information potentially impacted, which is specific to the individual.
The attacker(s) did not gain access to OA’s medical record system.
In addition to other steps they took post-incident, OA reports that its cybersecurity firm has been monitoring the dark web. At the time of their notification letter, they report they had not found any evidence of OA documents on the dark web.
Although they do not name the attackers, DataBreaches found this incident on INC Ransom’s dark web leak site on March 27. As of publication today, the threat actors have neither updated the listing nor leaked any data.