Joan McClane reports:
Hamilton County officials were notified more than 240 days ago about a data breach potentially compromising financial information for more than 14,000 people, according to an internal memo this month.
According to the memo from the county attorney’s office, affected parties and the public were supposed to be notified within 60 days, but that does not appear to have happened.
The memo focuses on Nationwide Recovery Services, which the county contracted with for debt collection service for past due receivables across several county departments, including the criminal court clerk’s office, ambulance billing, the health department and the Water and Wastewater Treatment Authority.
According to the memo, the firm sent a letter on Feb. 17 saying that it had reported a “cyber incident” to Hamilton County on July 14, 2024.
Read more at Chattanooga Times Free Press.
A check of DataBreaches’s records reveals that Nationwide Recovery Services notified HHS of the breach on September 9, 2024 but used a placeholder of “501” for the number of patients affected. That number has not been updated on HHS’s public breach tool.