Valley Oaks Health Reports 50,000-Record Data Breach
Cyberattacks and data breaches have been reported by Valley Oaks Health and Sycamore Rehabilitation Services in Indiana, Plymouth Tube Company in Illinois, and Weirton Medical Center in West Virginia.
Valley Oaks Health, Indiana
Valley Oaks Health in Niles, IL, has recently notified 50,352 individuals about a breach of its network environment. Unauthorized individuals gained access to parts of its network between June 8, 2023, and June 13, 2023. Its network was secured, and third-party cybersecurity experts were engaged to assist with the investigation and confirmed that files containing patient data had been exposed and may have been stolen.
The forensic investigation and document review were completed on February 2, 2024. The breach notice sent to the Maine Attorney General has the specific types of compromised data redacted but the notice confirmed that names have been exposed along with Social Security numbers. Consumer notifications were mailed on March 18, 2024, and complimentary credit monitoring services have been offered to individuals whose Social Security numbers were exposed.
Weirton Medical Center, West Virginia
Weirton Medical Center in West Virginia identified suspicious activity within its computer network on January 18, 2024. Systems were immediately secured, and third-party cybersecurity experts were engaged to investigate the breach and determined that there had been unauthorized access to the network between January 14, 2024, and January 18, 2024, and files were copied from its systems.
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The information involved varied from individual to individual and may have included one or more of the following: name, Social Security number, date of birth, medical information, health insurance information, treatment information, and the balance due on medical bills. While files were confirmed as having been removed from the network, Weirton Medical Center is unaware of any misuse of patient data. Weirton Medical Center said strict security measures were already in place, and they have been augmented to prevent similar incidents in the future. Notification letters were sent to the affected individuals on March 18, 2024. The incident has been reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights as affecting 26,793 individuals.
Sycamore Rehabilitation Services, Indiana
Sycamore Rehabilitation Services, Inc. in Danville, IL, has reported a breach of its email system and the exposure of the personal data of 3,414 individuals. The breach was detected on September 21, 2023, with the forensic investigation confirming there had been unauthorized access to its network between July 29, 2023, and August 9, 2023. During that time, there may have been unauthorized access to names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license/state identification numbers, account numbers, routing numbers, medical information, and health insurance information. It was not possible to determine exactly what types of information were acquired in the attack.
Sycamore Rehabilitation Services said it had implemented security measures prior to the breach. Multi-factor authentication was enabled on all email accounts, a VPN was required for access to internal resources from outside the organization, critical patches were applied each month, email security solutions were in place, all endpoints were protected with Sentinel One anti-virus, Azure PowerShell access was off by default, and POP/IMAP was disabled by default. Those measures have now been augmented with Proofpoint email scanning and security, Breach Secure Now phishing testing, and DUO MFA on VPN accounts.
The affected individuals were notified by mail on March 1, 2024, and have been offered complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Sycamore Rehabilitation Services said the delay in issuing notifications was due to the time taken to investigate the breach and identify the affected individuals.
Plymouth Tube Company, Illinois
Plymouth Tube Company in Warrenville, IL, has identified unauthorized access to its computer network. The forensic investigation confirmed that there was unauthorized access between January 27, 2024, and January 29, 2024, and during that time, the unauthorized actor accessed or acquired files on its servers, which included files that contained employee benefit plan data.
The review of the affected files confirmed that 2,652 current and former employees and their dependents had been affected and had one or more of the following compromised: name, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number, and plan information. The affected individuals were notified on March 13, 2024, and complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services have been made available.
