Quest Diagnostics confirms breach, patient data now at risk
Approximately 33% of all adult Americans use Quest for patient testing services every year.
Quest Diagnostics Patient Service Center. Image by Sundry Photography | Shuttersock
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- Quest Diagnostics says attackers accessed its Quanum Lab Services Manager system and it paused access after discovering the incident.
- Patient health information and personal data were involved, but Quest has not yet said how many people were affected.
- Quest says core operations and other customer ordering systems were not affected.
- Quest serves half of US physicians and hospitals and one in three US adults each year, making the breach potentially significant.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Quest Diagnostics confirmed on its website Thursday that one of its lab systems was hacked earlier this month, exposing an unknown amount of patient data.
The New Jersey-based medical testing giant says it first became aware of "unauthorized access to our Quanum Lab Services Manager (LSM) system" on October 21st and immediately paused access.
We are continuing to investigate this incident and are working to fully restore the affected system as quickly as possible.Quest Diagnostics posted on its website Thursday.
We are working to determine the specific data affected.
The company, which performs more than 200 million clinical lab tests per year according to its website, said that the LSM system is used by certain clients to place test orders, receive, and look up test results.
Quest also said its "core business operations remain up and running," while other direct-customer LIS interfaces and EMRs used to order testing were not affected.
Unknown amount of patient data impacted
According to Quest, both patient health information and patient-identifiable information were involved, although it is still determining the scope of the intrusion.
"We are working diligently to identify the impacted patients and providers. As the covered entity, Quest Diagnostics will make notifications as required by applicable law," the company said.
Quest operates over 7,700 access points, including roughly 2,000 patient service centers across the US, serving one in three American adults each year.
Quest also noted that the preliminary findings show the incident is not related to a PHP programming language issue.
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