Patients of Sharp HealthCare got some concerning news Monday when the provider informed them that some of the business’s servers had been hacked and patient information was stolen.
Sharp said it first detected the cyberattack on Jan. 12, after which its IT team took the potentially affected servers offline and engaged a forensic tech firm that aided it in its investigation. The probe determined that a server had been infiltrated for “a few hours” on the date that the suspicious activity was noticed and that the hacker or hackers were able to gain access to a file with patient information in it.
The people whose information was hacked all used online bill pay between Aug. 12, 2021, and Jan. 12, 2023. A representative for Sharp told NBC 7 that personal information about 62,777 was seized in the cyberattack.
According to a “Notice of data privacy event” to patients posted on Sharp’s website, the file held different information on different patients, but the data was “limited to patient names, internal Sharp identification numbers and/or invoice numbers, payment amounts and the names of the Sharp facilities receiving the payments.”
The healthcare provider stressed that the following personal information was not taken in the breach:
- Bank account or credit/payment card information
- Social Security numbers
- Contact information
- Health insurance information
- Dates of birth
- Clinical information
- Department name
- Provider name
- Information about the services received
