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Email phishing

Baystate Health patient records exposed in an email phishing attack.

baystate-health-email-phishing-incident

On April 9, 2019, Massachusetts-based Baystate Health notified its patients that an email phishing attack may have exposed their health records. The exposed information included names, dates of birth, diagnoses, treatment information, medications, health insurance information, medicare numbers, and Social Security numbers.

What happened

Between February 7 and March 7, 2019, an attacker gained access to several medical center employees' email accounts via a phishing email. The medical center immediately enlisted the help of a third-party forensic security firm to contain the attack and secure the accounts.

The subsequent investigations revealed that only the information stored in the compromised email accounts was affected, and the database containing medical records was not impacted. Baystate sent letters to all the affected patients notifying them about the breach. Aside from that, the medical center is offering free credit monitoring and identity protection services for a year to its affected patients.

Since the incident, Baystate has taken steps to improve its security systems. The passwords of the email accounts have been changed, and the email logs are being monitored. More importantly, Baystate is providing phishing attack awareness training to all its employees.

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Attachments by file name keyword
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