Episource, LLC, is a business associate that provides healthcare technology and solutions, specializing in medical coding, risk adjustment, and data analytics for health plans and providers.
On February 6, anomalous activity in their system alerted Episource to a potential attack. In response, they shut down computer systems, initiated an investigation, called in a special team, and notified law enforcement. Their investigation revealed that unauthorized access to their system occurred between January 27 and February 6, during which time data containing protected health information was exfiltrated.
A data breach review revealed that the types of information involved included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, as well as health insurance details, medical information, and, in certain cases, Social Security numbers and birthdates.
On June 6, Episource notified HHS that 5,418,866 patients were affected by the incident. Where clients opted to have Episource make the notification to patients, Episource sent out letters from IDX informing patients of the incident and offering them complimentary mitigation services.
It is unclear whether the 5.4 million number represents the universe of patients affected or only those for whom clients wanted Episource to make the notifications. Both Sharp Community Medical Group and Sharp Healthcare have independently confirmed that patient data was compromised in the attack, but they provided their own reports to HHS, with Sharp Community Medical Group reporting 2,029 patients were affected and Sharp Healthcare reporting 24,971 patients were affected.
And although media coverage seems to be referring to this as a ransomware attack, DataBreaches notes that Episource does not refer to it as a ransomware attack, does not mention whether any data or files were encrypted as part of the attack, and makes no mention of any ransom demand. As of publication, no ransomware gang or extortion gang has claimed responsibility for the attack or added Episource to any leak site.
DataBreaches called the number for IDX that was provided for those who have additional questions and asked the representative if this was an encryption event or only involved exfiltration of data. The representative would not answer the question but finally agreed to take our name and phone number to have someone call us back. If they actually do, we will update this post.