A data breach at a healthcare provider based in Missouri has reported a ransomware attack. Recent news reports revealed that the Blue Springs Family Care health center suffered a ransomware attack as a result of a data breach that might have compromised 44,979 records of their patients.
A letter from the healthcare company posted publicly stated that the attackers potentially gained access to various patients record information, including but not limited to: full names, addresses and birthdates of patients, account numbers, social security numbers, disability codes, medical diagnoses, and driver’s license/ID card numbers.
The public letter also stated that the ransomware attack was first uncovered on May 12, 2018. The investigators of the attack found the company’s computer systems had been hacked into by an “unauthorized party” and that various malware programs had been uploaded to the systems. One of those malware programs included the malicious cryptor.
Additional information divulged in the letter included the fact that the Blue Springs Family Care Center has, because of the hacking incident, essentially taken steps to reinforce their defenses against possible future incidents. The healthcare agency hired a forensic information tech company immediately after discovering the breach. The information technology company was hired to assist Blue Springs with the quarantining of infected systems and the installation of monitoring software so that they could find out whether or not any unauthorized entity was gaining access to the systems.
Blue Springs has also stated that they are transitioning to a different provider of electronic health records and that this new company will be providing encryption of all of their protected health data.
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