Premier Health patients among millions involved in data breach, software company says
A data breach with a company used by Premier Health may have impacted the personal information of the healthcare network’s patients.
Welltok, Inc., a company that operates an online contact-management platform that allows healthcare clients to provide patients with communications, mailed letters regarding a data breach to patients on behalf of Premier Health earlier this month.
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According to the letter, the breach itself happened on May 30 but the company wasn’t alerted to it until July 26.
In August, an investigation determined that an “unauthorized actor exploited software vulnerabilities, accessed the MOVEit Transfer server on May 30, 2023, and exfiltrated certain data from the MOVEit Transfer server during that time.”
Premier Health was one of several organizations impacted by the breach. The healthcare network learned the scope of the breach on Oct. 23, according to the letter.
Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that over 8.4 million people were impacted in the breach.
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“Since then, we have been coordinating efforts with Premier Health to review and verify the affected information and provide direct notice to impacted individuals,” the company wrote in the letter.
Welltok said they have no evidence of fraud of the misuse of patient information.
The type of information at issue varies for each person, but for a “small group of impacted clients Social Security Numbers, Medicare/Medicaid ID Numbers, or certain Health Insurance information such as plan or group name, were also implicated.”
Welltok is offering those whose information could have been compromised access to 12 months of credit monitoring and identity protection services. Those individuals have until the end of February to sign up for the services.
