CentroMed data breach impacted over 400,000 patients

San Antonio-based healthcare provider El Centro Del Barrio suffered a significant data security incident that compromised the sensitive personal information of 400,000 individuals.

 

In a data security incident notice, El Centro Del Barrio, also known as CentroMed, said that on May 1, it identified unusual activities in its network. The healthcare provider immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident.

 

It also took steps to secure the affected network and notified law enforcement about the incident.

 

“Through our investigation, we determined that an unauthorised party gained access to our IT network on or about April 30, 2024. While in our IT network, the unauthorised party accessed and/or acquired files that contain information pertaining to CentroMed’s current and former patients,” reads the notice.

 

The compromised data included patient names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, financial account information, medical records numbers, health insurance information, diagnosis and treatment information, and claims data.

 

According to CentroMed’s filing with the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), at least 400,000 individuals were impacted by the incident.

 

“To help prevent something like this from happening again, we have implemented additional safeguards and technical security measures to further protect and monitor our systems,” CentroMed added.

 

The organisation has advised all affected individuals to regularly monitor their credit reports, account and benefit statements and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement authorities, including the police and state attorney general.

 

Last year, CentroMed suffered a similar data security incident where the KaraKurt ransomware group claimed to have infiltrated the network of the healthcare provider and stolen 25 GB of data which includes accounting, financial, HR, SSNs, medical and health info.