Egyptian Health Department Cyberattack Affects Up to 100,000 Individuals
Egyptian Health Department (EHD) in Eldorado, IL, has recently announced a data breach affecting up to 100,000 patients. EHD suffered a cyberattack on December 21, 2023, and while the forensic investigation is still ongoing, evidence has been found that indicates folders on its network were accessed by an unauthorized individual. Those folders contained files that included patients’ protected health information and employee data.
The exposed patient data included names, dates of birth, medical information, and health insurance claims information. The exposed employee data included names, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers/ other government-issued IDs, financial account information, and/or insurance information. EHD is still investigating the incident to determine the potentially impacted employees and patients and will mail notifications when that process is completed.
EHD has taken several steps to improve security, including creating new domain controllers, moving the SMB network shares of the domain controllers to a dedicated virtual machine, conducting permission audits on shared folders, limiting Sharepoint Server to internal access only, installing Sentinel One and Huntress on all equipment, and implementing password protection on spreadsheets with PHI.
Update: On July 2, 2024, a notification was issued to the Main Attorney General indicating 121,995 individuals were affected and were notified on July 2, 2024. The HHS” Office for Civil Rights breach portal still this the incident as affecting 100,000 patients.
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McKenzie County Healthcare System Announces Email Account Breach
McKenzie County Healthcare System in North Dakota has identified unauthorized access to an employee email account. The breach was detected on or around October 5, 2023, and the forensic investigation confirmed an unauthorized individual accessed a single email account between October 2 and October 5, 2023.
A review was conducted of all emails and attachments in the account, and it was confirmed that the protected health information of 21,000 patients had been exposed. The exposed data included names, addresses, medical information, and health insurance information. No evidence was found to indicate any of that information has been misused.
Forward Healthcare Impacted by MOVEit Hack at Business Associate
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Email Account Breached at Maryville Addiction Treatment Centers
Maryville Addiction Treatment Centers in New Jersey have started notifying 15,503 patients about a breach of an employee email account. The security breach was detected on or around August 22, 2023, and the forensic investigation revealed there had been unauthorized access to the account between August 21, 2023, to August 22, 2023.
The review of the account confirmed the following data was exposed: full names, Social Security numbers, medical treatment information, health insurance information, dates of birth, financial account information, and government identification. Maryville said there are no indications that any of the exposed information has been misused.
Cencora Confirms Recent Cyberattack Involved Data Exfiltration
The Fortune 500 pharmaceutical firm, Cencora, said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has experienced an intrusion and data was exfiltrated from its network. Cencora said the attack did not have a material impact on its operations, but it is too early to tell whether the incident will have any material impact on its financial condition.
Cencora said it discovered unauthorized activity within its systems and took immediate action to contain the threat and reported the incident to law enforcement. Third-party cybersecurity experts have been engaged to assist with the investigation and data exfiltration was confirmed on February 21, 2024, but an announcement has yet to be made about the nature of the impacted data.
California Department of State Hospitals Alerts Patients About SSN Exposure
The State of California – Department of State Hospitals Atascadero (DSH-A) has started notifying certain patients about a security incident discovered on February 15, 2024, in which Leave and Activity Balance (LAB) reports were exposed. The reports were disseminated to DSH-A staff for use in timesheet approval and contained confidential information such as names and Social Security numbers. DSH has launched an investigation to determine if the reports have been improperly accessed and is in the process of arranging for complimentary identity theft protection services to be provided to the affected individuals. At this stage, it is unclear how many individuals have been affected.
