MASSDEVICE ON CALL — In what has become a stream of high-profile healthcare hacks, federal officials revealed this week that even their healthcare systems are not immune.
There’s no sign that the intruders stole any private information since they only accessed a test server for the Healthcare.gov website, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Officials told the paper that the July incident was the 1st time successful cyber-attack on the Healthcare.gov system and that it appears there was no real harm done. The test server that was hacked didn’t contain family names, social security numbers or financial data that other servers host.
"Our review indicates that the server did not contain consumer personal information; data was not transmitted outside the agency, and the website was not specifically targeted," according to a Health & Human Services Dept. statement. "We have taken measures to further strengthen security."
The news comes just weeks after Community Health Systems confirmed that it hackers stole about 4.5 million patient medical records. Cybersecurity experts have warned that healthcare hacks are on the rise, motivated in part by the high value of patient records on the internet’s black markets as well as by the relative lack of digital defenses in the industry.
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