Email Boxes Hacked at Beacon Health in Indiana

Two-hospital Beacon Health System in South Bend, Indiana, is notifying about 220,000 patients following discovery of a phishing attack that accessed some employee email boxes as far back as November 2013.


Two-hospital Beacon Health System in South Bend, Indiana, is notifying about 220,000 patients following discovery of a phishing attack that accessed some employee email boxes as far back as November 2013.

The breach, found by an internal forensic team after an employee noticed email irregularities, affected both hospitals and affiliated physicians, according to a spokesperson.

Also See: Do You Have a Breach Response Plan?

In a statement, the delivery system said the attack was sophisticated and accessed multiple email boxes with the last date of unauthorized access on January 26, 2015. “While there is no evidence that any sensitive information was actually viewed or removed from the email boxes, Beacon confirmed that patient information was located within certain email boxes,” according to a published notice.

Compromised information, which varied between affected individuals, included patient name, date of birth, Social Security number, driver’s license number, diagnosis, date of service, treatment, doctor’s name, patient ID number and patient status, along with other information in the medical record.

Beacon Health System continues to work with the FBI and is offering affected individuals one year of credit monitoring and identity protection services from Experian.

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