Two specialty medical care firms – a Texas-based home healthcare agency and a Pennsylvania-based women’s and family health clinic – are reporting separate ransomware breaches that in total affect nearly 600,000 individuals.
Dallas-based Home Care Providers of Texas reported its incident to the Texas attorney general’s office on Jan. 13 as affecting about 124,000 residents of the Lone Star State. The company’s breach notification statement indicates that an undisclosed number of North Carolina residents are also affected.
Meanwhile, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania-based nonprofit Maternal and Family Health Services reported a ransomware incident on Jan. 10 to the Maine attorney general’s office as affecting nearly 461,200 individuals, including 68 Maine residents. MFHS supports a network of health and nutrition centers in 17 Pennsylvania counties.
The incidents follow a growing trend of ransomware criminals hitting a widening range of different types of healthcare providers and their vendors, including smaller and specialty entities.
“Healthcare data is very lucrative right now and the criminals know that small to medium-sized companies tend to have less security than larger companies,” says Jerry Caponera, general manager of cyber risk at security firm ThreatConnect.
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