Kaiser Permanente Data Breach May Impact 13.4 Million

May 1, 2024

Due to digitization, tech, and centralization, data breaches are becoming more and more common.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/data-breach-at-kaiser-permanente-may-have-impacted-13-4-million-customers-organization-says-

Kaiser Permanente: Data Breach May Impact 13.4 Million Customers

Data shared with third-party vendors potentially includes member names and IP addresses.
4/30/2024

Health care service provider Kaiser Permanente has revealed roughly 13.4 million people in the United States may have been impacted by a data security incident that occurred earlier this month.

In a filing with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights, the Oakland, California-headquartered conglomerate said the data breach occurred on April 12 and impacted its Kaiser Permanente Foundation Health Plan members.

More than 12.5 million people were enrolled in those health plans as of Dec. 31, 2023, according to the organization’s website.

However, the filing with HHS states that approximately 13.4 million members may have been impacted by the recent breach.

Kaiser Permanente added that the data breach was related to unauthorized access and disclosure of information, although a spokesperson for the health care giant told Reuters that it had not identified any cases of misuse of data.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

This is the largest health data breach reported to HHS so far in 2024.  Two years prior, another Kaiser Permanente data breach involved unauthorized access which had exposed the health information of 69,000 people. In that breach an employee’s email account containing patients’ protected health information was accessed by an unauthorized individual, leading to patient full names, medical records, dates of service, and lab test results information potentially being exposed.

But, a February breach at UnitedHealth Group  during which the health insurer said hackers AlphV or BlackCat stole a potentially “substantial proportion” of health and personal data from individuals may exceed the current breach as the official number of patients impacted has not been released.

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