Pierluigi Paganini December 29, 2022

The Lake Charles Memorial Health System (LCMHS) suffered a ransomware attack that impacted 270,000 patients.

The Lake Charles Memorial Health System (LCMHS) disclosed a data breach that affected almost 270,000 patients at its medical centers.

The Lake Charles Memorial Health System is the largest not-for-profit community healthcare system in Southwest Louisiana.

LCMHS reported the incident to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The security breach took place on October 21, 2022, when the internal security team detected unusual activity on its computer network.

The organizations launched an investigation into the incident with the help of forensic experts and discovered that threat actors have stolen files containing sensitive data, including:

• Full names
• Physical addresses
• Dates of birth
• Medical records
• Patient identification numbers
• Health insurance information
• Payment information
• Limited clinical information regarding the received care
• Social Security numbers (in some cases)

The attackers had no access to electronic medical records.

“The investigation determined that the unauthorized access to our computer network occurred between October 20 and October 21, 2022, during which time the unauthorized third party accessed or obtained certain files from our systems.” reads the data breach notification published by LCMHS. “We reviewed these files and determined that some patient information was contained within them, which may have included patient names, addresses, dates of birth, medical record or patient identification numbers, health insurance information, payment information and/or limited clinical information regarding care received at LCMH. In some limited instances, patients’ Social Security numbers were also included. LCMH’s electronic medical record was not accessible to the unauthorized party.”

According to the portal for breaches of healthcare organizations, the incident impacted 269,752 individuals.

Starting on December 23, 2022, the company is sending a data breach notification via mail to the impacted patients.

The company is offering individuals whose Social Security number may have been compromised with credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.

Despite the Notice sent to the patients doesn’t provide technical details about the attack, it seems that the company suffered a ransomware attack.

The Hive ransomware group added the LCMHS to the list of victims on its Tor data leak site on November 15, 2022 claiming that the attack took place on October 25, 2022.

The gang also published the files allegedly stolen from LCMHS systems, including contracts, bills of materials, medical info, medical records, scans, and more.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Lake Charles Memorial Health System)

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