California health system reports 4 employee emails hacked since April

Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System reported multiple employee email accounts were hacked earlier this year, exposing protected health information.

Three things to know:

1. The Salinas, Calif.-based health system found that an employee account was compromised on April 30 and then found two other instances of email hacks on May 7 and June 5. The hackers also accessed the email accounts of a contractor and three other employee emails through Outlook Web Access, the health system's browser-based email access solution.

2. The incident exposed 786 individuals' information, according to Salinas' report to HHS. Affected information includes patient names, medical record numbers and hospital account numbers.

3. An internal investigation found that the unauthorized individual had access to the email boxes for just hours before the hack was identified and fixed. There is no evidence that the unauthorized individual viewed or copied the medical or personal information.

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