A data breaches have affected more than 5.5 million people, including the health of Yale New Haven, Connecticut’s largest health care system, impacting over 5.5 million people, according to a legally necessary notice to the U.S. government health agency.
Yale New Haven said the March cyber attack allowed malicious hackers to obtain personal identification information for patients and copies of some healthcare-related data.
According to notifications on the Healthcare System website, stolen data will vary from person to person, but may include patient names, date of birth, postal and email addresses, telephone numbers, race and ethnic data, and Social Security numbers. The stolen data also includes information on patient types and number of medical records.
Local media said a healthcare system spokesman said the number of individuals affected “can change.”
When asked about the nature of TechCrunch’s cyberattacks, Yale New Haven spokesman Dana Marnane did not object that the incident was related to ransomware.
“We will come to believe that the sophistication of the attack was carried out by individuals or groups who have these types of incident patterns,” Marnane declined to comment further on TechCrunch, citing an ongoing law enforcement investigation.
The healthcare provider refused to say whether there was communication with the hacker or whether the hacker requested payment.
At the time of reporting, the main ransomware group in the Hack has not been publicly trusted. It is not uncommon for ransomware or data terr gangs to publish victims’ stolen files when negotiations fail due to the failure of ransom demand.
This is the second major healthcare data breaches confirmed this week after California’s Blue Shield revealed it has been sharing health data on Google over several years.
Updated with comments and additional details related to ransomware.