More than 40,000 patients in the recent cyber attack

A latest cyber attack at Stamford Podiatry Group in the state of Connecticut put protected health data of 40,491 sufferers at risk.

The agency contacted sufferers this week to inform them that their protected health data was compromised. The hack of systems by a smaller healthcare agency is a reminder that such attacks can happen to any healthcare contributor or payer agency.

The practice’s technology contractor founded the attack on the night of the day of April 14 and shut down the data systems, claims Rui DeMelo, DPM, vice president and owner. That is unlike how several agencies typically seek out that they’ve been attacked, as law enforcement organizations inquiring a cyber incident typically find other agencies that were hacked and notify them.

The following day, the practice involved Equifax for investigation and remediation tasks that involved eradicating malware and backing up information to an off-site location, states DeMelo. Remediation was completed on the day of April 29. The investigation discovered that the intruder had access to systems from the day of February 22 to April 14.

Compromised protected health data could have involved medical history and treatment information in the electronic health records (EHRs) system, names, Social Security numbers, gender, birth dates, marital status, telephone numbers, addresses, email addresses, insurance coverage data and names of treating and referring physicians.

In a notification letter to sufferers, the practice stated, “However we’ve not been capable to confirm that your personal data was accessed and copied, we’ve not been capable to rule out that possibility and motivate you to take the protective measures mentioned below.” The measures involved reviewing account statements, monitoring credit reports and agreeing to one year of free credit monitoring and recognize theft protection services from Equifax.

Stamford Podiatry has retained cybersecurity professionals and is implementing extra unspecified security steps to stop further intrusions.