Healthcare Cyber Attack Targeted 36,000 Patients

IT managers Hospitals and other healthcare facilities have been on high alert for months regarding a growing wave of cyber attacks on their organizations that aim to compromise valuable patient data. The latest casualty of the attacks is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

UPMC began notifying patients Feb. 5 that their protected health information might have been exposed through a data breach at the Pittsburgh-based health system's billing and legal services provider last year, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.

Charles J. Hilton & Associates (CJHA) launched an investigation into suspicious activity affecting its employee email system last June and found that hackers logged into a number of its employee email accounts between April 1, 2020, and June 25, 2020. 

CJHA, which provides billing-related legal services to UPMC, confirmed to the health system in December that some of UPMC's patient information might have been accessed during the breach. UPMC is alerting more than 36,000 patients that their data was involved. This information included Social Security numbers, birth dates, bank and financial account numbers, medical record numbers and diagnosis details. 

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