Erin Mershon reports that a mailing error by health insurer Aetna exposed sensitive information: Thousands of people with HIV received mailed letters from Aetna last month that may have disclosed their HIV status on the envelope. The letters, which Aetna said were sent to approximately 12,000 people, were meant to relay a change in pharmacy…
Category: Health Data
KS: When your incident response creates a second problem….
On August 16, Salina Family Healthcare posted a substitute notice about a ransomware incident: Salina, Kansas – August 16, 2017 – Salina Family Healthcare Center (“SFHC”) has become aware of a data security incident that may have resulted in the disclosure of personal and protected health information of our patients and payment guarantors. Although at…
Hacking dominated health data breaches in July – Protenus
Protenus has released its July Breach Barometer, with data supplied by DataBreaches.net. Here’s a snippet from their report: July is the first month in 2017 to have hacking incidents outweigh insider breaches to patient data in both frequency and number of affected patient records. While hacking accounted for almost half of total breach incidents this…
Why the Russian state ‘weaponised’ stolen medical records of famous footballers
Jason Murdock reports: On Tuesday 22 August, a hacking group released the alleged medical records of 25 football players who had been allowed to use banned medicines during the 2010 World Cup, part of an ongoing series of disclosures centred on stolen therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs). The group claimed that the information was hijacked from…
Tx: Institute for Women’s Health warns patients personal data compromised in network hack
Samantha Ehlinger reports: The Institute for Women’s Health warned patients that hackers may have stolen some of their personal information or credit or debit card data, the physicians’ group said Thursday. The San Antonio OBGYN practice said a so-called keylogger virus was installed on its network on June 5. The virus was discovered July 6…
Pacific Alliance Medical Center notifies 266,123 patients of ransomware incident
From their web site, the following breach notification. According to their report to HHS, 266,123 patients were notified. Notice of Data Breach At Pacific Alliance Medical Center (PAMC), we understand that the confidentiality and security of medical and personal information is critically important, and we are committed to protecting it. The purpose of this post…