21st Oncology Breach Results Are In; 2.2 Million Victims

The healthcare industry is still getting hammered with news of breach activity. The latest victim is 21^st Century Oncology in Florida. It was notified by the FBI in November of 2015 that a third party had accessed information of 2.2 million patients. That information included names, social security numbers, healthcare data, insurance information, doctors’ names, and other information that patients certainly don’t want landing in the wrong hands.

The company was told that the intruders might have breached their systems in October. They didn’t notify patients when they found out about the problem, they say because the FBI asked them to hold off until they had a chance to investigate.

They are notifying patients as quickly as possible now. Anyone who has used 21^st Century Oncology for any services should be extra cautious about checking for fraudulent entries on credit reports. Social security numbers are different from credit card numbers because they are forever. As soon as a payment card number is reported as misused, it can rather easily be changed, making the old number useless and therefore worth less on the black market. Social security numbers are known to sell for fifty times that of a payment card number, partially for this reason.

Credit reports are available to anyone with credit. They can be requested from each of the three major credit bureaus every year. Review these carefully and immediately report anything even slightly suspicious. Even if an address is listed as a former residence and really wasn’t, while it could be a mistake, it could also be an indicator of fraud.

The company is offering one free year of identity theft protection services. A phone number and more information can be found on its website.

According to security company, Gemalto’s Breach Level Index, more than 707 million healthcare records were breached last year. Of those, 58% were by those with malicious intent. Accidental loss or exposure of data resulted in 36% of the cases and 14% were inside jobs by those with malicious intent.

Not only is this an issue for patients, but also the fact that the FBI is reporting breaches to the healthcare companies more often than we’d like is worrisome. This says that companies really need to step up their game in protecting the information of patients and do a better job at finding issues first by getting necessary expertise to prevent it in the first place. This might help patients gain a little more trust in those who are responsible for healthcare. There are protections for financial loss when payment card numbers are stolen. There are no such measures for protecting our health data. Criminals know it and they will certainly continue to exploit it as long as it is profitable for them.