December 6, 2024 at 07:08AM
Atrium Health has reported a data breach affecting over 585,000 individuals, linked to online tracking technologies used on its patient portal from 2015 to 2019. Potentially exposed data includes personal information, but not financial details or Social Security numbers. This follows another incident involving compromised employee emails earlier this year.
**Meeting Notes Takeaways:**
1. **Data Breach Notification:** Atrium Health has informed the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about a data breach affecting over 585,000 individuals.
2. **Incident Details:** The breach is likely connected to online tracking technologies on the Atrium Health patient portal used from 2015 to 2019, which may have transmitted personal information to third-party vendors like Google and Facebook (Meta).
3. **Impact on Patients:** All users of MyAtriumHealth or MyCarolinas patient portals during the specified time are presumed affected. Potentially exposed information includes IP addresses, cookies, treatment data, names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses, depending on user configurations.
4. **Data Safety Assurance:** Atrium Health clarified that no Social Security numbers or financial information were involved in this breach, emphasizing there is no evidence of misuse of the exposed information.
5. **Previous Incidents:** This breach is not isolated; Atrium Health also reported a cybersecurity incident in September where employee email accounts were accessed via phishing, compromising a variety of personal and financial information.
6. **Company Response Status:** Atrium Health has not provided additional clarification on which specific incident affected the 585,000 individuals.
7. **Company Background:** Atrium Health operates over 1,400 care locations and 40 hospitals across multiple states. There was a prior significant data breach in 2018 affecting 2.6 million patients.