A cyber attack which targeted the database of the Department of Health and Social Services(DHSS), United States in April last year is reported to have affected more than 100,000 Alaskan Households says the latest statement released by DHSS. The statement adds that the health services provider has already started to send letters to each household to keep them informed about the data breach from October last year.
Highly placed sources say that virus attack which took place on April 26th last year is said to have caused the data breach which got identified only after April 30, 2018. At that time the DHSS came to a conclusion that only 500 Alaskans were affected by the breach.
But after conducting a detailed inquiry on the issue via a third party, the health and social services provider said that breach could have affected more than 100K Alaskans and especially those who applied for programs such as Medicaid, SNAP, Senior Benefits, and disabilities related to Medicaid and adult public assistance.
Shawnda O’Brien the director of the Division of Public Assistance said that breach was caused by Zeus/Zbot Trojan Virus and the authorities of the state agency identified it only after May’18. A press statement was released on the issue in June last year about a possible HIPAA and APIPA breach.
However, a detailed inquiry made later that year discovered that the virus bypassed multiple layers of security and intercepted the network targeting confidential documents on DPA clients which includes names, social security numbers, date of births, addresses, health information, benefits information and other personal data such as income of an individual.
O’Brien confirmed that the virus could have been spread/distributed through a Russian hacking group as the interaction related to the cyber incident was done through the IP addresses located in the Vladimir Putin led nation.
For more info, you can email to PrivacyOfficial at the rate alaska.gov
