Texas Hospital Discloses Huge Breach

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/security-and-privacy/texas-hospital-discloses-huge-breach-/d/d-id/1113724

By David F Carr
InformationWeek.com
2/5/2014

St. Joseph Health System has confirmed a security breach affecting the 
records of up to 405,000 past and current patients, as well as employees 
and employees' beneficiaries.

St. Joseph says it believed the attack occurred between Dec. 16 and 18, 
when one of its computer servers was hacked, and that the exposure ended 
on the 18th when the attack was discovered and the server was shut down. 
The health system hired national security and computer forensic experts to 
investigate. The ongoing investigation suggests the attackers may have 
gained access to records including names, Social Security numbers, dates 
of birth, and possibly addresses, as well as the medical information of 
patients and bank account data for employees.

If substantiated, this would be one of the largest healthcare data 
breaches ever reported, and the largest by an individual health system. 
The largest, according to US Department of Health and Human Services data, 
involved 780,000 records in a 2012 incident at the Utah Department of 
Health and 475,000 records in a 2008 report from the Puerto Rico 
Department of Health. Since both of these are government agencies, the St. 
Joseph breach could potentially have the biggest loss of patient data 
reported by an individual hospital.

So far, the damage done is a matter of speculation.

[...]



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