Cyber attack on Connecticut Community Health Centre impacted over 1m patients

The Connecticut Community Health Centre said it experienced a data security incident that compromised the sensitive personal information of more than 1 million individuals.

 

The Middletown, Connecticut-based Community Health Center is one of the state’s primary healthcare centres that provides primary medical, dental, and mental health services to its patients.

 

In a data breach notice filed with the Office of Maine Attorney General, CHC said that on January 2, it identified unusual activity in its internal network. The healthcare provider immediately launched an investigation, with assistance from external cyber security experts, to determine the nature and scope of the incident.

 

“They found that a skilled criminal hacker got into our system and took some data, which might include your personal information. Fortunately, the criminal hacker did not delete or lock any of our data, and the criminal’s activity did not affect our daily operations,” CHC said. 

 

“We believe we stopped the criminal hacker’s access within hours, and that there is no current threat to our systems.”

 

CHC said the compromised data included patients’ names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, emails, diagnoses, treatment details, test results, Social Security numbers, and health insurance information. The healthcare centre’s filing with the Maine state regulator revealed that the cyber security incident impacted as many as 1,060,936 individuals.

 

“We’ve strengthened our security and added special software to watch for suspicious activity. We are also working to make sure your information stays safe in the future,” CHC added.

 

While the healthcare provider found no evidence of the compromise data being misused, it 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.

 

It has also offered two years of complimentary identity protection and credit monitoring services through IDX to all affected individuals.