US healthcare provider hack exposes patient records

Updated on: January 23, 2024 1:53 PM

Damien Black
Senior Journalist

Hospital hacker — Shutterstock/Cybernews

A healthcare provider has admitted to being breached, leaving patient data exposed to fraudulent use by cybercriminals.

Coastal Hospice and Palliative Care made the disclosure on PR newswire on January 22nd, in which it said it had “recently experienced a data security incident that involved some of its patient data including certain personal and protected health information.”

Data exposed include patient names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, medical diagnoses, health insurance policy numbers, physician and medical facility information, medical conditions and treatment details, and patient account numbers.

Coastal claims that the original intrusion into its computer network happened on July 24th but that it did not confirm the extent of the cyberattack before November.

“After a thorough review of those files [...] certain individuals’ personal and/or protected health information was identified as being contained within the potentially affected data,” it said.

The not-for-profit community healthcare provider, which employs roughly 100 people and has 300 volunteers, says it has notified victims and offered advice on how to protect their data.

“Coastal Hospice takes the security and privacy of all information very seriously,” it said, adding it had “enhanced its network security” and reported the incident to the FBI.

A toll-free number, 888-541-0492, has also been set up to help victims.