On July 10, 2023, the Nashville-based healthcare operator HCA Healthcare announced it discovered a list of information was released on an online forum by an unauthorized party. According to HCA Healthcare’s official statement, the information stolen comes from an external storage location used exclusively for automated email messages. Eleven of the facilities affected are located in Collin County.
Update 7/12/2023 9:00 a.m.: As reported by DataBreaches.net a hacker claimed responsibility for the theft of the information of 11 million patients treated at HCA-owned facilities and announced that the data is now on sale in the deep web. According to the hacking watchdog site, on July 5, 2023, a seller posted on a website that the data would go up for sale should the company not meet the seller’s demands. When contacted by DataBreaches, the seller said they contacted HCA Healthcare on July 4 and told them they had until July 10 to respond to the demands.
According to D Magazine, the hacker posted on a deep web forum they had over 27 million records for sale. “More data is included in the sale. HCA Healthcare have until July 10 to meet the demands,” one post reads and later, after the deadline was reachedthe seller added a new post saying that HCA does not value client data. “The 27,700,000 lines of data is now for sale.” D Magazine found evidence that other users from the forum have already reached out to the hacker about the data.
The original story continues below.
While the company said that sensitive information such as credit card numbers, passwords, driver’s licenses, social security numbers and clinical information were not shared in the list, patients’ name, city, state, zip codes, email, telephone number, date of birth, gender, service date, location and next appointment date were shared on the forum.
While HCA Healthcare might not ring a bell for you, the company has 180 hospitals and over 2,300 sites across 20 states with different names that you are most likely familiar with such as Medical City, Caring for Women and North Texas Heart Center among others. The healthcare provider estimates that 11 million patients’ information was stolen.
“HCA Healthcare will offer credit monitoring and identity protection services, where appropriate,” reads the company’s statement. “In the meantime, we encourage patients to remain vigilant in identifying calls, emails or SMS texts which appear to be spam or fraudulent. Additionally, patients should never open links or attachments sent from untrusted sources.”
According to HCA Healthcare, the company is working on several containment measures: HCA disabled user access to the storage location, reported the event to law enforcement and retained third-party forensic and threat intelligence advisors.
The Collin County facilities affected by the theft are the following:
Frisco
- Caring For Women Frisco
- Medical City Frisco
- North Texas Heart Center Frisco
Plano
- Medical City Plano
- North Texas Heart Center Plano
- SLS - MC Plano Providers
- SW Cardiothoracic Surgeons Plano
- Texas Bone & Joint Plano
McKinney
- Medical City Mckinney
- North Texas Heart Center Mckinney
Allen
- MCCH - Acute Kids Allen
See the full list of facilities affected here.
If you receive a communication regarding an invoice, balance, or payment reminder from a facility operated by HCA Healthcare that you suspect could be fraudulent, contact (844) 608-1803 to confirm the legitimacy of the message.