Application security

EmCare data breach exposes 60,000 employees, patients

EmCare Inc. suffered a data breach after several employee email accounts were accessed by an unauthorized entity, resulting in the compromise of up to 60,000 individuals' information.

The Dallas-based company, which provides physician services, said in a statement that it determined the hacked emails contained patients’, employees’ and contractors’ personal information. The exposed data included names and birth dates or ages and, for some patients, clinical information. In certain instances, Social Security and driver’s license numbers were impacted.

EmCare says it determined the contents of the affected email accounts on Feb. 19, 2019. However, the statement does not specifically say when the breach is believed to have first occurred or when the health care provider discovered the incident. The company also did not reveal how many individuals are affected, but a Bloomberg report put the number at 60,000 – 31,000 of them patients.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the information has been misused, or that anyone will attempt to misuse the information. In addition, EmCare is not aware of any individual who has been impacted by fraud or identity theft as a result and does not know if any personal information was actually obtained by an unauthorized party,” Emcare said in a statement.

EmCare is providing Experian’s IdentityWorks credit monitoring and identity protection services to those whose Social Security numbers and driver’s license information was exposed.

SC Media has contacted EmCare for additional comment.

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