Massive Data Breach of HCA Healthcare Affects Millions Nationwide Including TX

Nashville, TN (WBAP/KLIF) – Patient information for about 11-million people affiliated with HCA Healthcare based in Nashville, including locations in Texas have been impacted by a data breach.

The incident affects patients in nearly two dozen states, including patients at dozens of facilities in Texas and Florida.

The breach, announced by the HCA Healthcare on Monday, exposed names, birth dates location and future appointments dates. HCA says hackers targeted an external storage location “exclusively used to automate the formatting of email messages.” The company claims that no clinical information was exposed.

According to CNBC, The data was “stolen and is for sale by hackers. The data sale flagged on Twitter by Brett Callow, an analyst at New Zealand-based Emsisoft. The sale so far appears to affect patients in Florida.

Callow told the network that it “may be one of the biggest health care-related breaches of the year and one of the biggest of all time.”

Meantime, HCA Healthcare encourages be those impacted to be vigilant about suspicious calls, emails or text messages that appear to be spam or fraudulent and to never open links or attachments sent from untrusted sources, and that if there are suspicious services listed on invoices to contact the company.

Pete Nicoletti (pictured left) is Field CISO: Americas, Check Point Software Technologies and tells WBAP/KLIF News that corporations and the general public should always keep their systems and devices updated. “The malicious actors are taking advantage of people who haven’t patched their phones and haven’t patch their PCs. In the case of hospital system breaches, he says, “It’s almost virtually certain the initial vector started looking for patched systems.”

Nicoletti added that corporations are saving money by not spending enough on cyber-security. As a result he says, “We keep paying the ranson and we’re funding the criminal.” Until the cycle stops he says, the breaches will continue and increase.

Meantime, Blue Cross Blue Shield says that medical identity theft continues to be a major financial drain on the health system and is the fastest growing form of healthcare fraud.