Integrity Transitional Hospital located in Denton, Texas has become a recent victim of data breach. According to D Healthcare Daily, Integrity contacted a forensic firm after detecting suspicious activity in one of its databases. The firm said that its database could have been hacked on August 14th, 2016 and many of patient lab test results could have been spilled on public platforms like social media.
The data involved in the leak includes health insurance data, driver’s license information, and personal contact details. However, patient’s social security numbers remained inaccessible.
It is confirmed that the data breach resulted in the leak of more than 29,514 patients. Hospital authorities are issuing notifications via emails to all those affected patients from on October 14,2016. A dedicated call center has been established to answer any patients questions from early this month.
From past 2 years, data security concerns have increased in healthcare sectors as hackers are treating data related to healthcare as an apt source of income. They somehow succeed in infiltrating into the network, expose the database to malware like Ransomware and then start reaping the benefits.
Ransomware is a kind of malware which sits in the database, slowly starts locking the files and then unlocks them when the hacker receives a ransom.
They are many cases, where hackers disagree to give the passcode to unlock files even after receiving the ransom. They either demand more money or do not have the proper code to release the files. This often deteriorates the concerns related to data security.
The only way to avoid this situation is to have a backup which can be brought live when the need arises. A backup not only prevents to bring back your business on time but also will help in curbing ransomware demands.
Integrity has also assured that the incident will never get repeated, as the organization is taking all necessary steps to enhance existing security on their systems related to the laboratory information which is being maintained.
