Hospital Español Auxilio Mutuo de Puerto Rico didn’t discover on their own that their systems had been compromised, and then, despite outside expert help, they were unable to determine with precise confidence whose data was exfiltrated or whether it has been misused, but the hospital has now started notifying patients potentially affected by a breach that occurred on or before Septembeer 23, 2023.
According to its press release and website notice, on September 23, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security informed the hospital that its systems were the likely target of a criminal cyber group. By two months later, the hospital’s investigators had found evidence consistent with an attack, but could not determine what data, if any, had been exfiltrated or misused. A subsequent investigation was able to limit the potentially affected patients to those who visited the hospital between August 2022 and September 2023.
On July 13, 2024, the hospital initially notified HHS of the incident, using a placeholder of “500” for the number of patients affected. The hospital did not respond to an inquiry from DataBreaches on August 5, 2024 seeking more information about the attack.
As of publication, the number affected has yet to be updated on HHS’s public breach tool.
Although he hospital could not confirm the exact data elements affected for each potentially impacted patient, the following types of information may have been involved for any patient:
- Contact information (such as first and last name, address, date of birth, phone number, and email) and one or more of the following:
- Health insurance information (such as primary, secondary or other health plans/policies, insurance companies, member/group ID numbers, and Medicaid-Medicare-government payor ID numbers);
- Health information (such as medical record numbers, providers, diagnoses, medicines, test results, images, care and treatment);
- Billing, claims and payment information (such as claim numbers, account numbers, billing codes, payment cards, financial and banking information, payments made, and balance due); and/or
- Other personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses or state ID numbers, or passport numbers.
The hospital is offering those potentially affected 12 months of Medical Shield Pro and Equifax WebDefend services.