Equitas Health Patient Records Breached Through Employee Email Account

Exploit: Employee email account breach

Equitas Health: Regional, a not-for-profit healthcare provider based in Ohio
 

Risk to Small Business: 1.333 = Extreme: Company officials discovered abnormal email activity on two enterprise email accounts belonging to employees, ultimately concluding that a hacker was successful in accessing personally identifiable information (PII) and patient records. The organization hired a third-party forensics firm to better understand the breach, and they are reaching out to affected individuals. Although the organization took immediate steps to contain the incident, it will now face the tangible costs of offering free identity monitoring services to patients, along with the less quantifiable losses in reputational damage.

Individual Risk: 2 = Severe: While it appears that the scope of the attack is limited, the breadth of compromised information is extensive. It includes patient names, dates of birth, patient account and medical record numbers, prescription information, medical history, procedure information, physician names, diagnoses, health insurance information, social security numbers, and driver’s license numbers.

Customers Impacted: 569 affiliated members
How it Could Affect Your Customers’ Business: This data breach demonstrates the potentially expansive consequences of a single vulnerability. Since healthcare companies are legally required to protect their patients’ data, they need to conduct regular security audits and employee training that can prevent this type of breach. At the same time, Equitas explicitly serves protected classes and marginalized patient groups, making this episode especially egregious. Therefore, it’s critical to continuously monitor protected information in order to understand what happens to patient data after it’s compromised.

Risk Levels:

1 - 1.5 = Extreme Risk
1.51 - 2.49 = Severe Risk
2.5 - 3 = Moderate Risk

*The risk score is calculated using a formula that considers a wide range of factors related to the assessed breach.