Gainwell Technologies found out that unauthorized persons have likely accessed the data of a number of patients of Wisconsin’s Medicaid program. The data was saved in email messages and file attachments in a breached account.
The hackers acquired initial access to the email account on October 29, 2020 up to November 16, 2020. The information contained in the account included names, billing codes for services and member ID numbers. The breach affected about 1,200 Wisconsin Medicaid members. Gainwell Technologies offered the affected persons a free membership to credit monitoring services for one year.
Gainwell is a fiscal-agent services provider for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) Medicaid Program. After the breach happened, the DHS and Gainwell have taken preventive steps together to avoid the same breaches in the future.
This is Gainwell’s second reported incident in recent weeks. Gainwell manages the Medicaid Management Information System that TennCare, Tennessee’s state Medicaid health plan uses. Gainwell identified a mailing vendor error that resulted in the sending of mailings to the wrong addresses from 2019 to 2020. The two incidents were not connected.
Email Account Breach at Mattapan Community Health Center
Mattapan Community Health Center (MCHC) is informing 4,075 patients regarding unauthorized persons that gained access to some of their protected health information (PHI) contained in an email account.
MCHC detected unusual email account activity on October 16, 2020. A third-party computer forensics company, MCHC confirmed that the email account was breached on July 28, 2020. After a manual and programmatic analysis of the email account, MCHC confirmed that the unauthorized persons potentially accessed the following information: Names, medical diagnoses, treatment data, provider details, medical insurance data, medical record numbers and/or Social Security numbers.
MCHC already implemented additional security measures to avoid other email security breaches.
Conti Ransomware Gang Exposes Information Stolen from TaylorMade Diagnostics
TaylorMade Diagnostics based in Chesapeake, VA manages occupational health clinics servicing transportation firms and government organizations. A ransomware attack on the company resulted in the exposure of workers’ health information online.
The ransomware gang stole around 3,000 files before encrypting files. The information was posted on a darknet leak site managed by the Conti ransomware gang. The leaked information is associated with employees of Taylor Made Diagnostics clients, such as Norfolk Southern Railroad and
the United Parcel Service. The leaked information contained facts about medical tests, reports of drug and alcohol testing, and complete names, Social Security numbers, and copies of driver’s licenses.
Update on Hendrick Health November 2020 Ransomware Attack
Hendrick Health has given additional details on a ransomware attack that made it implement EHR downtime measures last November 2020. The company detected the attack on November 20, 2020 and promptly enforced security measures. Based on the investigation results, the attackers first accessed its systems on October 10, 2020 and possibly viewed or acquired patient data until November 9, 2020.
The compromised data may have included patients’ names, demographic information, Social Security numbers, and other data associated with the services offered by Hendrick Health. The breach just impacted patients who had gotten medical services at the Hendrick Clinic or the Hendrick Medical Center in the past. The breach did not affect the Hendrick Medical Centers located in Brownwood and the South.
The compromised systems stored the ePHI of 640,436 patients. Hendrick Health has strengthened data security measures and system tracking as well as added new features to its security alert application.