UCLA HOSPITALS HACKED
The UCLA hospital system was the site of another cyber attack, the LA Times reported yesterday.
I, along with Holli Herdeg, wrote about hospital data as one of several Los Angeles critical infrastructures vulnerable to cyber attack for EPICenter LA. In the article, we covered a 2014 breach into Community Health Systems, the second largest hospital operator in the country. Details of that attack were not provided until mandatory disclosure in an SEC filing:
The largest patient record hack to date was Anthem's breach in January. A database with about 80 million records was infiltrated. The actual number of records estimated stolen was in the tens of millions, an Anthem representative told USA Today.
That breach was organized and targeted sensitive information, like social security numbers. Anthem said in a statement:
I, along with Holli Herdeg, wrote about hospital data as one of several Los Angeles critical infrastructures vulnerable to cyber attack for EPICenter LA. In the article, we covered a 2014 breach into Community Health Systems, the second largest hospital operator in the country. Details of that attack were not provided until mandatory disclosure in an SEC filing:
"The attacker was able to bypass the Company’s security measures and successfully copy and transfer certain data outside the Company… this intruder has typically sought valuable intellectual property, such as medical device and equipment development data. However, in this instance the data transferred was non-medical patient identification data related to the Company’s physician practice operations and affected approximately 4.5 million individuals who, in the last five years, were referred for or received services from physicians affiliated with the Company."Interestingly, the number of records possibly compromised, 4.5 million, was the same as at UCLA. Is there something about a cache of 4.5 million records that is useful to hackers?
The largest patient record hack to date was Anthem's breach in January. A database with about 80 million records was infiltrated. The actual number of records estimated stolen was in the tens of millions, an Anthem representative told USA Today.
That breach was organized and targeted sensitive information, like social security numbers. Anthem said in a statement:
"Cyber attackers executed a very sophisticated attack to gain unauthorized access to one of Anthem's IT systems and have obtained personal information relating to from consumers and Anthem employees who are currently covered, or who have received coverage in the past."At UCLA, data obtained also included social security numbers, we well as treatment records. Affected individuals will get a year of free credit monitoring. The university has not yet explained how it happened. The FBI is investigating.
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