Illinois-based Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centres said it suffered a data breach that compromised the sensitive personal information of close to 250,000 patients and staff.
In an 8K filing the the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the hospital said that on April 4, it discovered a cyber security incident that involved an unauthorised threat actor accessing its internal network. The hospital immediately launched an investigation to understand the nature and scope of the cyber attack.
“Based on that investigation, forensic evidence indicated that, just prior to the incident, there were exports of data to an external cloud storage platform by an unauthorised party. The investigation found that these exports contained files with information about current and former employees and their dependents or beneficiaries, as well as current and former patients of Morris Hospital,” the hospital’s filing read.
Morris Hospital said the compromised information included the names, addresses, social security numbers, medical record numbers and account numbers, diagnostic codes including numeric codes used to identify diagnoses and treatments, and dates of birth of current and former employees and their dependents and beneficiaries who have also been patients at Morris Hospital.
The hospital’s filing with the Office of the Attorney General of Maine confirmed that at least 248,943 individuals were affected by the data breach.
“Upon discovering the incident, Morris Hospital immediately reset passwords for all employee accounts and suspended employee mobile email access. We identified and removed malicious files and enhanced our monitoring, logging, and detection capabilities.
“We retained global security professionals to conduct an independent investigation and assist with our recovery efforts. After several weeks of investigation, they were able to produce a listing of affected directories, which our professionals and outside counsel then used to harvest and review restored files for potentially affected personal information,” Morris Hospital added.
While the investigation found no evidence of compromised information being misused, the possibility of the same cannot be ruled out. Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centres has urged all its former and current staff and patients to remain vigilant about the security of their personal accounts and monitor them for unauthorised activity. If any suspicious activity is identified, it needs to be reported to appropriate law enforcement immediately.
The hospital is also offering a year of complimentary credit monitoring, identity restoration, theft insurance services through Experian to all affected individuals.
