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BIDMC Announces Potential Security Hack

Boston (Massachusetts, US) based BIDMC (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) lately acknowledged that the hospitals' PCs were struck with a potential security hack, thus published Boston.com in news on July 18, 2011.

Evidently, on July 18, 2011, BIDMC stated that a PC service vendor, which didn't disclose its name, couldn't retrieve the right security configurations for one of the PCs while doing its routine task of maintenance. Later, it was discovered that the computer was contaminated with a worm that moved files stored on the system to some strange place.

The files reportedly, held 2,021 patients' names, dates of birth, genders and clinical record numbers, along with the radiology procedures' titles and dates after the patients underwent the treatment. However, no Social Security Number or financial data of the patients were in those files that could be utilized for committing ID thefts and bank frauds.

Further as per the hospital officials, before the worm wreaked havoc, it had been encrypted and then used for the security hack.

Remarking about the above mishap, MD John Halamka, Chief Information Officer at BIDMC stated that the hospital took the incident as well as personal information together with protected health safeguards very seriously. Hospital authorities were thankful that there was no exposure of financial information and Social Security Numbers, while they regretted the inconvenience and possible anxieties the circumstances might have led to, he added. Thebostonchannel.com published this in news on July 18, 2011.

Meanwhile, affected patients have been facilitated with the availability of federal and state resources, a year of free service of ID safeguard, and one toll-free phone-number because of the hospital's negligent behavior that caused risk of ID and financial fraud.

Moreover, to end the discussion, it can be said that it's because of the above kinds of incidents, which prompted Massachusetts's Head of the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Barbara Anthony towards declaring lately that some 2,200 security hack notices came to the state from agencies and companies informing about stolen private details that affected some 5m residents of the state. Infosecurity-us.com reported this in news on July 5, 2011.

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