On April 29, 2022, Refuah Health Center in New York issued a statement on their website that begins:
The privacy and security of the personal and protected health information we maintain is of the utmost importance to Refuah Health Center.
We recently discovered unauthorized access to our network occurred between May 31, 2021 and June 1, 2021.
They “recently” discovered? Let’s stop right there.
On June 11, 2021, Lorenz ransomware threat actors added the Refuah Health Center to their leak site. How did Refuah only “recently” discover this when it was on a dark web site as early as June 11? If they had even googled their name, they would likely have come across mentions that Lorenz threat actors had added them to their leak site. HackNotice had noted it and RansomAlert on Twitter had mentioned it.
Lorenz just added a new post: “Refuah Health” #Lorenz #Ransomware #RansomAlert
— RansomAlert (@RansomAlert) June 11, 2021
DataBreaches had also spotted the listing but because Refuah had no contact information on their site other than phone, this site did not reach out to them at the time. The Refuah listing is no longer on Lorenz’s leak site. Refuah’s notice does not mention any ransom demand at all. So exactly what happened here? Are we to believe that Lorenz never tried to extort Refuah? Or that they tried but Refuah ignored their emails or contacts? Were any files encrypted? What exactly happened here that Refuah claims it only recently discovered a breach almost one year old?
Refuah notes that their investigation revealed that “a limited amount of personal and/or protected health information was removed from our network in connection with this incident.”
What do they mean by “limited amount?” This incident was reported to HHS as impacting 260,740 patients, and
The information included the affected individuals’ full names and one or more of the following: Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, state identification numbers, dates of birth, bank/financial account information, credit/debit card information, medical treatment/diagnosis information, Medicare/Medicaid numbers (which may be identical to Social Security numbers), medical record numbers, patient account numbers, and/or health insurance policy numbers.
“To date,” they write, “we are not aware of any reports of identity fraud or improper use of any information as a direct result of this incident.”
So what do they think Lorenz did with all that PII and PHI? Just tuck it away? Did they sell it to others? Is it on a marketplace somewhere? And if Refuah wasn’t aware of the breach for almost one year after it was listed on the dark web, can we have any faith in their report that they are not aware of any identity fraud or improper use?
You can read their full notice on their website.
DataBreaches has sent an inquiry to Lorenz yesterday to see if we can get more information about what happened in this incident, and will update this post if a response is received.