Unfortunately, the healthcare industry has seen an incredible amount of breaches in 2017. After 2016’s record breaking HIPAA enforcements, the increase in breaches does not bode well for future fines upon healthcare organizations. The average cost to a healthcare organization per lost record is $355 due to fines, the average rate of lost business, and recovery costs according to the 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study: Global Study – Ponemon Institute.
Studying the recent breaches helps organizations to avoid becoming the victim in the event of such a cyberattack. Here are the greatest healthcare breaches as of July of this year.
Molina Healthcare Breach
In response to a security flaw discovered by Ben Krebs, a security researcher, Molina Healthcare shut down their patient portal May 26th. The flaw allowed anyone to view private patient information by changing a URL by a single number without any authentication. This security flaw affected 4.8 million patients in 12 states and Puerto Rico. This major Medicaid and Affordable Care Act insurer is in the midst of internal investigations to determine the impact the breach made to customers’ data.
WannaCry Ransomware Attack
The WannaCry ransomware attack affected over 150 countries. The National Health Service in England and Scotland were especially targeted during this attack which occurred May 12th. The ransomware attack encrypted hospital data and held it ransom. The National Health Service investigations found that the ransomware was most likely the Wanna Decryptor, which is the most effective ransomware variant on the dark web, there is currently no decryptor available.
EHR Server Hack
It was discovered February 27th, 2017 that the New Jersey Diamond Institute for Fertility and Menopause had 14,633 patient records breached. The third-party server that hosted the Electronic Personal Health Information (ePHI) of their patients was hacked by an unauthorized individual. The breach is still under investigation.
Harrisburg Gastroenterology
On March 17th, the Health and Human Services Department’s Office for Civil Rights’ “Wall of Shame” listed that the Pennsylvania-based Harrisburg Gastroenterology had a breach of 93,323 records. These records were on a network server that was exposed due to a hacking incident.
Misconfigured Rsync Backup Causes Patient Record Leak
The Kromtech Security Research Center uncovered the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center breach on May 3rd. This breach may affect up to millions of patient records. The records were managed in a backup by iHealth Innovations, a third party vendor. The records were leaked due to a misconfigured rsync backup.
TheDarkOverlord Released 180,000 Patient Records
May 4th, DataBreaches.net reported a breach of: 3,400 patient records from New York City based Aesthetic Dentistry, 34,100 from California’s OC Gastocare, and 142,000 from Tampa Bay Surgery Center. This cyberattack was announced by TheDarkOverlord when he shared a link to download the databases of breached records via his twitter account.
Patient Data Stolen From Pediatricians
Records from 500,000 children are available on the dark web due to the work of a hacker named Skyscraper. On April 26th, it was made known that patient and parent names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers, and addresses were available for purchase. The amount of information available and what has been reported to Health and Human Services Department do not match, which means that many providers still do not realize the breach.
HealthNow Networks Backup Database Exposed
HealthNow Networks contracted MediboxSolutions, a software developer, for a web development project that required they upload a database online. There were 918,000 ePHI records available online without any security measures for 3 years. HealthNow Networks isn’t covered by HIPAA so the individuals affected by the breach are unlikely to be notified.
Dharma Virus Attack Affects 55,447 Patients
San Antonio based ABCD Children’s Pediatrics had a breach of 55,447 patients due to the dharma ransomware atatck. March 23rd, the organization notified its patients of the attack.
Phishing Attack at Washington University School of Medicine
January 24th, 2017, the Washington University School of Medicine learned of a phishing attack that occurred 7 weeks prior. As a result of the phishing attack, an unauthorized party may have gained access to 80,000 records.
Ransomware Attack Exposes 17,634 Patient Records
March 10th, 2017, Milwaukee based Metropolitan Urology Group began notifying patients of a ransomware attack that may have exposed patient data. Two of the organizations servers were infected by a virus which may have exposed private patient records from 2003 through 2010.
Hackers Breached Cancer Center Records
February 2017, the Flint, Michigan cancer center Singh and Arora Oncology Hematology notified 22,000 patients of a breach of records that had been discovered August 2016. The breach was caused by hackers who accessed the practices’ server between February and July of 2016.
$43,000 Ransom for Cancer Research Center Data
TheDarkOverlord on January 11th, 2017, hacked, data stripped, and encrypted the server and backup drive of Muncie, Indiana based Cancer Services of East Central Indiana. Extortion threats were sent by TheDarkOverlord asking for $43,000 in ransom for the information. The research center was able to recover the information from the cloud and are moving to a cloud-based system.
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