New | Chinese hackers attack US hospital, stealing 4.5 million patients' records
Personal information stolen - but credit card and medical data remained untouched, US company says
Chinese hackers allegedly attacked one of America’s biggest hospital groups, stealing personal data belonging to 4.5 million patients – making it the largest such breach since tracking started five years ago.
Community Health Systems (CHS), which operates 206 hospitals across the Unites States, said the hackers infiltrated their systems in April and June this year using “highly sophisticated malware and technology” to bypass its data security protection.
Maybe they were trying to get at the medical data, but for some reason they couldn’t
Information such as patient names, addresses, birth dates, telephone numbers and Social Security numbers of people who were referred or received services from CHS-affiliated doctors in the last five years.
Medical information, intellectual property information or any credit card data were untouched, it said.
An investigator said the attackers appeared to be from a sophisticated hacking group in China that had breached other major US companies across several industries.
“They have fairly advanced techniques for breaking into organisations as well as maintaining access for fairly long periods of time without getting detected,” said Charles Carmakal, managing director with FireEye Inc’s Mandiant forensics unit, which led the investigation of the attack.