Community Health Systems, a publicly traded hospital operator based in Franklin, Tennessee, said that personal data, including names, Social Security numbers and addresses, for 4.5 million patients had been compromised in a Chinese computer attack on its systems from April to June.
The company, which operates 206 hospitals in 29 states, said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday that the attackers had bypassed its security systems and stolen data that also included birth dates and telephone numbers for the patients, who had been referred to or treated by doctors affiliated with the company over the past five years.
The company is required to notify affected patients and agencies under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects personal data.
Community Health Systems engaged Mandiant, a subsidiary of FireEye, the Milpitas, California, computer security company, to investigate the attack. Mandiant said it believed the attackers were part of an advanced group based in China that typically steals valuable intellectual property, like medical device and equipment development data. The hospital operator said no patient credit-card, medical or clinical information had been taken.
The company confirmed the hack last month and said it had eradicated the attackers’ malware from its systems and increased its computer defenses to prevent future attacks. The company said it would provide identity theft protection to affected patients.
Security experts have long said that the digitization of medical records would invite hackers.
Last year, Stephen Cobb, a senior researcher at antivirus company ESET calculated that 24,800 Americans had protected health information exposed per day last year, based on the number of breaches disclosed on the Web site of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Including the breach at Community Health Systems, 6 million Americans have had personally identifiable data compromised this year, according to the Website.
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