MaineGeneral Health suffered healthcare data breach recently. It is now sending notification letters to individuals who fell victim to the cyberattack.FBI notified that much of MaineGeneral Health data was on a website not affiliated with the system.
MaineGeneral and a third-party forensics team found that personal information had been breached for patients who were referred by a treating physician to radiology. Some MaineGeneral employee information was also breached along with personal information for potential donors.
Affected information includes names, addresses, and telephone numbers. MaineGeneral confirmed that no Social Security numbers, patient medical or health information, health records, driver’s license numbers, or financial information had been disclosed.
MaineGeneral Health suffers data breach
could include patients at all of MaineGeneral’s subsidiary clinics, including MaineGeneral Medical Center, MaineGeneral Rehabilitation and Long Term Care, MaineGeneral Retirement Community, and MaineGeneral Community Care.
Fraud Prevention Tips
MaineGeneral encourages everyone to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft, especially this time of year.
- Reviewing account statements, medical bills, and health insurance statements regularly for suspicious activity, to ensure that no one has submitted fraudulent medical claims using your name and address. Report all suspicious or fraudulent charges to your account and insurance providers. If you do not receive regular Explanation of Benefits statements, you can contact your health plan and request them to send such statements following the provision of services.
- Contacting the IRS at www.irs.gov to request a PIN to file your taxes, so that no one can use your information to submit a fraudulent tax return. The IRS will begin offering PINs in mid-January 2016.
Ordering and monitoring your credit reports for suspicious activity. Under U.S. law, everyone is entitled to one free credit report annually from each of the three major credit bureaus.
Get your personal as well as office laptops encrypted by Alertsec
Unencrypted laptops present a major risk of data loss. 80% of information theft is due to lost or stolen laptops and other equipment. About 50% of network intrusions are performed with credentials gathered from lost or stolen devices. The penalties for a data breach are severe not only in terms of the monetary fines imposed on the organization, but also the potential loss of trust from customers and suppliers. Encryption software greatly enhances the security of your organization’s data as the information is not compromised if a laptop is lost or stolen.
Alertsec Xpress is the full disk encryption service that delivers a mobile data protection system for all information stored on laptops used throughout your organization.