Essen Health Care Gets Breached and Loses Patient and Employee Data
Table of Contents
- By Steven
- Published: Jun 20, 2023
- Last Updated: Jun 20, 2023
Essen Health Care is a massive healthcare network of facilities and providers throughout New York City, Staten Island, and Westchester County. With more than 300 providers at a range of facilities connected to Essen Health Care, the organization maintains and stores a huge amount of medical and personal data for patients, providers, faculty, and more. All this data is protected by security features, but it was exposed in a recent breach. The breach puts anyone connected to Essen Health Care at risk and is a major issue everyone should know about.
How Did the Attack Occur?
The Essen Health Care breach occurred because one or more attackers broke into the company's file servers and began harvesting information. The data taken was personal and health-related, and much of it was private and confidential. The information stolen could be used in harmful ways and is a serious risk to anyone connected to this breach. Soon after the breach occurred, the organization launched a formal investigation to determine what information was taken and how much damage could result from this breach overall. The final data taken from this investigation was disheartening.
What Information Was Viewed or Stolen?
While exploring the full scope of this breach, investigators determined that most personally identifiable information, such as Social Security Numbers, government IDs, home addresses, phone numbers, full names, and more, was available. It's also likely that health records, insurance information, diagnoses, medication data, and more was exposed by this breach. All that data together could be very harmful if misused by the hackers that obtained it.
How Did Essen Health Care Admit to the Breach?
Essen Health Care released a formal notice on May 16 explaining the findings from its investigation. The data likely to be exposed is included in that notice, and the people most likely to be at risk. Anyone that believes the notice applies to them should take steps to protect their data and safeguard themselves from further issues.
What Will Become of the Stolen Information?
There's no way to know how the Essen Health Care data will be used by the attackers, but we can guess what will become of the information. The most likely use for that data will be to launch identity theft attacks, phishing scams, or to sell it to others that will misuse it instead. The data could be misused in a wide variety of ways, and it's likely it will be used in one harmful way or another.
What Should Affected Parties Do in the Aftermath of the Breach?
If you believe that your data was involved in this breach of information, you should take immediate steps to protect yourself against identity theft. Begin by investing in credit monitoring services or by looking at recent copies of your credit reports for strange changes. You could also put a freeze on your credit for additional protection. Be careful to avoid giving away any personal data about yourself online or via text message, and you should be able to protect yourself from most problems.
