BJC Healthcare has released that statement that revealed that three of its staff email accounts have been accessed by an unauthorized actor as a result of some workers answering phishing emails.
Suspicious activity was uncovered in the staff email accounts on March 6, 2020 and the accounts were immediately locked down. A leading computer forensics company was hired to conduct an investigation which revealed the three accounts had only been accessed for a short period of time on March 6. It was not possible to tell if patient data was seen or obtained by the hacker.
An investigation of the impacted email accounts revealed they contained the data of patients at 19 BJC and affiliated hospitals. Protected health information in emails and attachments were different from patient to patient and may have incorporated the following data elements:
- Patients’ names
- Medical record numbers
- Patient account numbers
- Dates of birth
Limited treatment and/or clinical information:
- Provider names
- Visit dates
- Medications
- Diagnoses
- Testing information
The health insurance data, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers of specific patients were also potentially accessed.
All patients who may have had by the breach will be notified by mail when the email account review is finished. Patients whose driver’s license or Social Security number may have been infiltrated will be offered free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services.
BJC HealthCare said new security measures will be implemented to prevent incidents such as this in the future and employees will be retrained to help them identify and avoid dangerous emails.
These BJC HealthCare and affiliated hospitals were impacted by the breach:
- Alton Memorial Hospital
- Barnes-Jewish Hospital
- Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital
- Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital
- BJC Behavioral Health
- BJC Corporate Health Services
- BJC Home Care
- BJC Medical Group
- Boone Hospital Center
- Christian Hospital
- Memorial Hospital Belleville
- Memorial Hospital East
- Missouri Baptist Medical Center
- Missouri Baptist Physician Services, LLC
- Missouri Baptist Sullivan Hospital
- Parkland Health Center Boone Terre
- Parkland Health Center Farmington
- Progress West Hospital
- Louis Children’s Hospital