Social security numbers of 4.2million Americans across the country exposed in breach of Miami healthcare system
A sweeping health care data breach has left the names, addresses and social security numbers of 4.2million Americans vulnerable.
Independent Living Systems (ILS), based in Miami, Florida, is a firm that provides administrative services to Medicare and Medicaid providers. It serves 5million Americans.
The firm suffered a data breach between June 30 to July 5, 2022. It confirmed the breach — which caused the firm to lose control of its systems — earlier this year. This week, ILS revealed that nearly its entire base was affected.
Included in data breached also was driver’s licenses, financial account information, Medicare or Medicaid identifications, and mental or physical treatment and condition information.
It comes as part of a rising trends of data breaches striking American health care systems in recent years.
ILS confirmed this week that 4.2million of the 5million people whose data it has stored were exposed in last year’s breach
‘Some information stored on the ILS network was acquired by the unauthorized actor, and other information was accessible and potentially viewed.,’ the firm wrote in a statement Tuesday.
‘Upon containing the incident and reconnecting its computer systems, ILS conducted a comprehensive review to understand the scope of potentially affected information and identify the individuals to whom such information relates.
‘ILS received the results of this review on January 17, 2023, and then worked as quickly as possible to validate the results and provide notice to potentially impacted individuals and entities.’
Despite the breach, ILS said there have been no instances of identity theft or fraud attached to it.
The company could not say with certainty what information was acquired by the unnamed hacker.
Once it was reconnected with its internal computer system last July, ILS said it conducted a comprehensive review to understand the scope of the breach.
The firm operates in all 50 states and the US territory Puerto Rico. In employs 800 people across the US.
Recent history shows that hacking into healthcare systems and the private data associated with them is a growing problem.
A report at the end of last year found that 42million Americans had their data breached since 2016 — more than 10 percent of the population.
Earlier this month, a Russian hacking group attacked Lehigh Valley Health Network, in Pennsylvania, and threatened to leak naked pictures of cancer patients if they did not receive a ransom.
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, which serves nearly 400,000 patients across Florida, was forced to use pen-and-paper for five days after a hack took down its systems.
As part of the event, the emergency room became limited and some patients were turned away.
Infamous Russian cybergang Killnet took down the website of 14 top US hospitals, including Duke University and Stanford in January.
More than 20million Americans were exposed in a hack of CommonSpirit Health’s systems last year.
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