Data Breach

EmCare reveals patient and employee data were hacked

EmCare disclosed that a number of employees’ email accounts had been hacked, potentially exposing personal information of patients and employees.EmCare disclosed that a number of employees’ email accounts had been hacked, potentially exposing personal information of patients and employees.

US healthcare firm EmCare Inc disclosed that a number of employees’ email accounts had been accessed, potentially exposing personal information of almost 60,000 people, including 31,000 patients.

EmCare is owned by Envision Healthcare, it is a leading provider of physician jobs for emergency medicine, inpatient physician services, radiology management programs and other healthcare services.

It has more than 700 practices at locations ranging from major hospitals and health systems to rural hospitals and ambulatory care centers.

EmCare, Inc. and its affiliates (EmCare) recently became aware that an unauthorized third party obtained access to a number of EmCare employees’ email accounts. EmCare provides physician services.” reads the incident notice published by the company.

“Patients impacted by this incident may have received medical care from a clinician employed by or engaged with an affiliate of EmCare. These services may have been provided in an Emergency Department or as inpatient services in a hospital.”

The company discovered the intrusion on February 19, hackers compromised some employees’ email accounts and gained access to some patients’, employees’ and contractors’ personal information.

“On Feb. 19, 2019, EmCare determined that the impacted email accounts contained some patients’, employees’ and contractors’ personal information, including name, date of birth or age, and for some patients, clinical information. In addition, in some instances, Social Security and driver’s license numbers were impacted.” continues the notice.

At the time of publishing, the company pointed out that there is no evidence to suggest that the information has been misused.

The extent of the security incident is still unclear, we have no information about the number of accounts that were accessed by the intruders. The company did not provide technical details about the hack.

In my humble opinion, the fact that employees were keeping patients’ data unprotected into their email accounts is very disturbing.

EmCare will offer identity protection and credit monitoring services for patients and employees whose Social Security or driver’s license numbers were exposed in the incident.

“As a general precautionary measure, individuals should remain vigilant about protecting themselves against potential fraud or identity theft by, among other things, reviewing their account statements and monitoring credit reports closely.” concludes the notice.

“If individuals detect any suspicious activity on an account, they should promptly notify the financial institution or company with which the account is maintained. They should also promptly report any fraudulent activity or any suspected incidents of identity theft to the proper law enforcement authorities, including the police and their state’s attorney general.”

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – EmCare, data breach)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Recent Posts

Cisco addressed high-severity flaws in IOS and IOS XE software

Cisco addressed multiple vulnerabilities in IOS and IOS XE software that can be exploited to…

12 hours ago

Google: China dominates government exploitation of zero-day vulnerabilities in 2023

Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant reported a surge in the number of actively…

19 hours ago

Google addressed 2 Chrome zero-days demonstrated at Pwn2Own 2024

Google addressed two zero-day vulnerabilities in the Chrome web browser that have been demonstrated during…

1 day ago

INC Ransom stole 3TB of data from the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland

The INC Ransom extortion group hacked the National Health Service (NHS) of Scotland and is threatening…

1 day ago

CISA adds Microsoft SharePoint bug disclosed at Pwn2Own to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds a Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability disclosed at the…

2 days ago

The DDR Advantage: Real-Time Data Defense

This is the advantage of Data Detection and Response (DDR) for organizations aiming to build…

2 days ago

This website uses cookies.