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British Columbia health care data breach overview:
- Who: The Health Employers Association of British Columbia disclosed it suffered a data breach that targeted websites for its Health Match B.C., Locums for Rural B.C., and the B.C. Care Aide & Community Health Worker Registry.
- Why: The data breach may have compromised information belonging to thousands of individuals working or applying to work in the B.C. public health sector.
- Where: British Columbia, Canada.
Personal information belonging to thousands of people working or applying for work in the B.C. public health sector may have been compromised during a recent cyberattack against a trio of websites hosted by the Health Employers Association of British Columbia (HEABC).
Information stolen during the data breach could include social insurance numbers, passport and driver’s license details, and home addresses, among other things, according to the association’s CEO Michael McMillian, reports the CBC.
McMillian reportedly said a total of 240,000 email addresses may have been stolen during the data breach that targeted Health Match B.C., Locums for Rural B.C., and the B.C. Care Aide & Community Health Worker Registry.
One of the websites was used to recruit nurses, physicians, and other healthcare professionals, while the other two help with vacation coverage for rural doctors and registered care aides from certain facilities, reports the CBC.
Data breach did not compromise individual health records, HEABC says
McMillian reportedly said the data breach did not compromise individual health records, that the attack was not associated with ransomware, and that the association plans to offer two years of free credit monitoring to anyone who may have had their information compromised.
“I sincerely regret this event happened and I want to reassure everyone that we are working with cybersecurity and privacy experts to address the incident,” McMillian said, in a statement, reports the CBC.
The data breach was discovered on July 13, however McMillian reportedly said the bad actors were found to have been accessing the healthcare system from May 9 through June 10.
The programs impacted by the data breach will still be operational, however their public-facing websites will be down, meaning any new applicants will have to contact administration directly to register, reports the CBC.
Ontario’s Superior Court last October approved a $3.4 million settlement agreement made by Ontario-based healthcare services provider CarePartners to resolve claims it broke the law by allegedly allowing a 2018 data breach to occur.
Were you impacted by the data breach against the HEABC programs? Let us know in the comments!
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One thought on Data breach compromises data of thousands of health care workers in British Columbia
My personal information was used to commit significant financial fraud at exactly the same time that HEABC had their data breached.
I believe the data came from an employer – Kelowna General Hospital employment data. I worked at K.G.H. an a Registered Nurse for many years.