Michigan-based healthcare company, Airway Oxygen, recently sent out letters to patients informing them of a recent ransomware attack affecting their PHI (protected health information).
On April 18th, 2017, the virus was installed and executed to prevent Airway Oxygen from accessing their data.
“PHI involved in the breach included some or all of the following information: full names, home addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers, diagnoses, types of services provided, and health insurance policy numbers.
However, bank account numbers, debit or credit card numbers, and Social Security numbers were not involved, Airway Oxygen maintained.”
An OCR data breach reporting tool came back with over 500,000 individuals affected by the ransomware. As a result of the widespread attack, Airway Oxygen has enlisted the help of a cybersecurity firm.
The hopeful outcome is the advancement of security implementations; preventing similar attacks from being administrated in the future. Victims involved in the data breach are also urged to change passwords, request new credit cards/debit cards, and keep a close eye on banking information.
In the meantime, Airway Oxygen released a statement about the cyber-attack:
“Since learning of the incident, we immediately took steps to secure our internal systems against further intrusion, including by scanning the entire internal system, changing passwords for users, vendor accounts and applications, conducting a firewall review, updating and deploying security tools, and installing software to monitor and issue alerts as to suspicious firewall log activity.”
With recent cyber-attacks like WannaCry, all companies – not just healthcare – should be strengthening their cyber security operations.
We are in a day and age that is built on technology; the good and the bad. In order to rise above the new threats plaguing the virtual world, everyone needs to do all they can to protect themselves and their information.
Take some time to research cyber security tutorials and tips. You won’t regret it; especially when the next wave of ransomware hits.