Information is out that the patients of 3 US healthcare providers have been receiving emails regarding a ransomware attacks that took place early this year. Highly placed sources say the hackers accessed sensitive patient files related to their medical history and locked them down from access until a ransom is paid to them in Cryptocurrency.
The healthcare providers in discussion are the ones based in Florida, New York and Georgia and the names of the medical treatment facilities are as follows- Advanced Urgent Care based in Florida Keys, Galstan & Ward Family and Cosmetic Dentistry, Suwanee and Four Winds Hospitals based in Katonah.
For the health services provider based in Florida, data related to names, date of births, insurance information, medical treatment information, medical diagnostic data, lab results, medical card numbers, Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary numbers, CHAMPUS ID numbers, driving number details, and social security numbers were accessed and encrypted in the ransomware incident.
In the ransomware attack that took place on Sept 1st,2020 on Four Winds, data such as names, medical record numbers, social security numbers were breached and locked up.
On September 11th,2020 some files on the practice server of Galstan & Ward Family and Cosmetic Dentistry were infected with the file encrypting malware, but no patient data was accessed, say the authorities and the email notification was being sent out of an abundance of caution.
Note- All the three facilities offering medical help have taken appropriate Cybersecurity measures to thwart such malware attacks in future and have also informed the law enforcement to launch a probe.
