Email security, Security Strategy, Plan, Budget, Breach, Risk Assessments/Management

Data breach at Georgia health system confirmed

Georgia-based Wellstar Health System has confirmed being impacted by a data breach after its email system was compromised, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Two of the health system's email accounts have been accessed by an unauthorized actor in February, which were then leveraged to expose an unknown number of patients' health care data, including their names, medical record numbers, Wellstar account numbers, and laboratory information, according to Wellstar. However, patients' financial data and Social Security numbers were not affected by the security incident. "After an extensive forensic investigation and manual document review, Wellstar discovered on February 7, 2022 that one or more of the email accounts accessed between December 6, 2021 and January 3, 2022 contained identifiable personal and/or protected health information. Wellstar has no evidence to suggest that any data is misused or otherwise in the possession of someone it should not be," said Wellstar, which added that the impacted email accounts have already been disabled.

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