Health records exposed by security breach
A security breach involving the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and other military hospitals exposed sensitive information on about 1,000 patients, according to a statement released by the Army.
The information included names, Social Security numbers, and birth dates, leading to concerns about identity theft for the patients involved. The computer file that was breached did not include information such as medical records, or the diagnosis or prognosis for patients, according to officials with the hospitals involved.
The Army is investigating how the data security was compromised, and Walter Reed officials declined to say exactly what happened until the investigation is complete. A Walter Reed spokesman did confirm that the computer file was found on a "nongovernment, nonsecure computer network."
Officials at Walter Reed learned of the breach on May 21 from an outside data mining company, which found the file while working for another client. The data mining company alerted Walter Reed.
The hospital is working to notify all of those whose information was released, the spokesman says. The data breach only is the latest in a series of such incidents affecting patients in various health systems. The Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged a massive breach in May 2006, in which personal data on up to 26.5 million veterans was lost.
A security breach involving the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and other military hospitals exposed sensitive information on about 1,000 patients, according to a statement released by the Army.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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