Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has sent a letter to committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), requesting a hearing into the causes and potential aftermath of last month's data breach at Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems.
The massive breach was caused by a cyberattack thought to be perpetrated by Chinese hackers. Stolen data include names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers of about 4.5 million patients who visited CHS-affiliated physicians in the past five years.
In his request for a hearing, Rep. Cummings implied the size of the breach warranted Congressional attention, and suggested lessons learned from the inquiry could help improve security measures around HealthCare.gov. "I believe an investigation of the data security breach at Community Health Systems will help the Committee learn from these witnesses about security vulnerabilities they have experienced in order to better protect our federal information technology assets," he wrote.
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