Utah Medicaid Data Breach Worsens; Nearly 182K Individuals Affected

Update: On April 10, 2012, The Utah Department of Technology Services and the Utah Department of Health announced the total number of individuals affected by the breach had grown. They reported 280,000 individuals had their Social Security numbers stolen from a computer server in a data breach last week. Additionally, around 500,000 individuals had less-sensitive personal information stolen.

The Utah Department of Health has announced that a data breach, which occurred last week, has affected 181,604 Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Plan recipients, a larger impact than originally believed.

Personal information on the 181,604 individuals was removed from one of the Department of Health's servers. Of those individuals, 25,096 individuals appear to have had their Social Security numbers compromised.

Initially, the Department of Health thought hackers had removed 24,000 Medicaid claims. However, the investigation has revealed that 24,000 files were removed. One single file may contain claims information for hundreds of individuals.

Affected individuals have been notified of the breach. Priority has been placed on those individuals whose Society Security numbers were breached.

Utah's Department of Technology Services identified the cause of the breach as a breakdown in the server system. The Department is taking steps to improve security controls.

More Articles on Data Breaches:

Hackers Suspected in Breach of 24,000 Utah Medicaid Files
Guidelines to Safeguard Healthcare Data, Avoid Loss
More than 34K Patients Affected by D.C.'s Howard University Hospital Data Breach

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