Cybersecurity Attacks on Tandem Diabetes Care, Foundation Medicine, Texas Network of Walk-in Clinics and Randleman Eye Center

Phishing Attack on Tandem Diabetes Care Patients

A phishing attack on Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. in San Diego, CA resulted in the access of some employees’ email accounts between January 17, 2020 and January 20, 2020. The attack became known to Tandem Diabetes Care on January 17, 2020. A cybersecurity firm was engaged to investigate the incident promptly.

The information compromised included the patients’ names, contact information, clinical data related to diabetes care, and data about the services and products the patient availed from Tandem. Some patients also had their Social Security numbers exposed.

Tandem is enhancing its system user authorization and authentication and email security settings. Revised guidelines and procedures were implemented to control the types of data that are allowed for email transmission.

Affected patients were notified about the incident on March 17, 2020. About 140,781 patients were impacted as noted on the breach portal of the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights.

Foundation Medicine Phishing Attack

Foundation Medicine in Cambridge, MA, a genomic profiling service provider, reported a breach of an employee’s email account because the employee responded to a phishing email.

Foundation Medicine became aware of the breach on January 14, 2020. According to a third-party forensics company investigation, the attacker had access to the email account starting December 17, 2019 up to January 14, 2020. In about a month, the unauthorized person could have accessed the email account and viewed patient information such as names of patients, birth dates, ages, FMI ID numbers, clinical test names and attending physicians’ names.

Affected patients already received breach notifications letters. Foundation Medicine employees also had further training on security awareness.

Texas Network of Walk-in Clinics Maze Ransomware Attack

AffordaCare Urgent Care Clinic in Texas encountered a Maze ransomware attack. DataBreaches.net reported that the hackers stole 40GB of data prior to data encryption and published some of the data online because AffordaCare refused to give ransom payment.

The attackers published information that included contact details of patients, medical histories, diagnoses, medical insurance particulars, payment information, and employee payroll details. Information about the affected patients is not yet available on the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights breach portal.

Randleman Eye Center Ransomware Attack

A ransomware attack on Randleman Eye Center in North Carolina affected a server which stores patients’ PHI. The eye center identified the ransomware attack on January 13, 2020 and called in a third-party computer forensics investigator.

The investigation is not yet complete, but the investigators already confirmed data encryption and possibly the hacker’s access to patient information. The server contained information such as names, birth dates, genders, and electronic retinal photos.

Affected Randleman Eye Center patients already received breach notifications. Security improvements were also implemented to prevent further attacks.

About the Author

Elizabeth Hernandez
Elizabeth Hernandez is the editor of HIPAA News. Elizabeth is an experienced journalist who has worked in the healthcare sector for several years. Her expertise is not limited to general healthcare reporting but extends to specialized areas of healthcare compliance and HIPAA compliance. Elizabeth's knowledge in these areas has made her a reliable source for information on the complexities of healthcare regulations. Elizabeth's contribution to the field extends to helping readers understand the importance of patient privacy and secure handling of health information. Elizabeth holds a postgraduate degree in journalism. You can follow Elizabeth on twitter at https://twitter.com/ElizabethHzone