Florida Community Health Centers yesterday confirmed it sent notifications about a June 2023 data breach to 296,635 people.
No group has claimed responsibility for the cyber attack as of time of writing.
FCHC did not publicly disclose what types of data were compromised. Comparitech contacted the company for comment and will update this article if it responds.
It took more than a year to notify victims after the breach. FCHC’s notification explains multiple investigations and reviews of the incident and affected data took place to determine what happened, what data was compromised, and who was impacted.
The notice states, “While the initial investigation concluded on September 7, 2023, additional time was required for the forensic analysis to determine the likelihood as to whether an unauthorized user bypassed certain access controls that were in place at the time of the incident to secure data within FCHC’s network.”
FCHC says it posted a notice of the incident on its website on November 20, 2023.
Comparitech recommends victims take advantage of the free credit monitoring and identity theft protection offered by FCHC via CyberScout.
Ransomware attacks on US healthcare
Hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare-related organizations are frequent targets for ransomware attacks. In addition to data theft, ransomware can disrupt key systems used for payments, making appointments, storing patient information, and more. Hospitals and clinics might be forced to cancel appointments and divert patients elsewhere, or resort to pen and paper until systems are restored.
Comparitech researchers logged 134 confirmed attacks on US healthcare organizations in 2023, affecting 22,059,491 records. The average ransom was just over $1.4 million.
This year, we’ve recorded 36 such attacks, impacting 3,145,446 records. We tracked a further 89 unconfirmed attacks so far in 2024.
Ransomware group RansomHub this morning claimed to have hacked the Florida Department of Health. The Department did not confirm any attack, and there’s no evidence that RansomHub’s claim is related to the attack on FCHC.
About Florida Community Health Centers
Founded in 1976, FCHC is a private non-profit chain of clinics that provide primary and specialty healthcare around Lake Okeechobee and Florida’s Treasure Coast. It consists of 15 locations across six counties.