Social Security numbers of 4.2 million Americans across the country in conflict with Miami’s healthcare system
A massive healthcare data breach has left the names, addresses and social security numbers of 4.2 million Americans vulnerable.
Independent Living Systems (ILS), based in Miami, Florida, is a company that provides administrative services to Medicare and Medicaid providers. It serves 5 million Americans.
The company suffered a data breach between June 30 and July 5, 2022. It confirmed the leak earlier this year, causing the company to lose control of its systems. This week, ILS revealed that almost the entire base was affected.
Also included in the leaked data was driver’s licenses, financial account information, Medicare or Medicaid identifications, and mental or physical treatment and condition information.
It’s part of a rising trend of data breaches that have hit US healthcare systems in recent years.
ILS confirmed this week that 4.2 million of the 5 million people whose data it stored were exposed to last year’s breach
“Some information stored on the ILS network was obtained by the unauthorized actor and other information was accessed and may have been viewed,” the company wrote in a statement Tuesday.
“After the incident was contained and computer systems reconnected, ILS conducted an extensive investigation to understand the scope of potentially affected information and identify the individuals to whom such information pertains.
“ILS received the results of this assessment on January 17, 2023 and then worked as expeditiously as possible to validate the results and provide notice to potentially affected individuals and entities.”
Despite the breach, ILS said there are no cases of identity theft or fraud associated with it.
The company could not say for sure what information the anonymous hacker obtained.
After reconnecting to its internal computer system last July, ILS said it conducted a comprehensive assessment to understand the scope of the breach.
The company operates in all 50 states and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. In employs 800 people in the US.
Recent history shows that hacking healthcare systems and the associated private data is a growing problem.
A report released late last year found that the data of 42 million Americans had been leaked since 2016 — more than 10 percent of the population.
Earlier this month, a Russian hacking group attacked the Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania and threatened to leak nude photos of cancer patients if they were not paid a ransom.
Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, which serves nearly 400,000 patients across Florida, was forced to use pen and paper for five days after a hack disabled its systems.
As part of the event, emergency care was restricted and some patients were turned away.
In January, the notorious Russian cyber gang Killnet took down the websites of 14 top American hospitals, including Duke University and Stanford.
Last year, more than 20 million Americans were exposed to a hack of CommonSpirit Health systems.