Summary:
Healthcare data breaches are of concern midway through 20201. Nearly 1 million people were affected by healthcare organization data breaches every month of 2020. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in August 2021 alone, over 40 million patient records were exposed. This information is important to consumers because the leak of sensitive personal and medical information, including COVID-19 vaccination statuses, can lead to medical identity theft and other types of identity fraud.
Here are the recent data breaches that made headlines in August 2021:
OneMoreLead
August 4, 2021: A marketing company, OneMoreLead, has exposed the personal records of 126 million individuals through an unsecured database posted online. The database contained names, job titles, email addresses, work email addresses, home device IP address, home address, work address, personal phone number, work phone number and employer.
SOURCE | vpnMentor
SeniorAdvisor
August 13, 2021: Cybersecurity researchers found an unsecured database containing over 3 million personal records of members belonging to a senior living review site, SeniorAdvisor. The database was not password protected and allowed access to information including names, emails, phone numbers and dates contacted.
SOURCE | Infosecurity Group
UNM Health
August 17, 2021: An unauthorized third party gained access to the personal and medical data of over 637,000 patients of UNM Health. The information gathered by the third party includes patient names, addresses, dates of birth, medical record numbers, patient identification numbers, health insurance information and some clinical information related to the healthcare services provided by UNM Health.
SOURCE | HIPAA Journal
Microsoft Power Apps
August 24, 2021: A misconfiguration within Microsoft Power Apps, a Microsoft product, exposed at least 38 million records. The data leaks impacted American Airlines, Microsoft, J.B. Hunt and governments of Indiana, Maryland and New York City. The disclosed data includes COVID-19 vaccination statuses, social security numbers and email addresses.
SOURCE | Infosecurity Group
