Email phishing attack at UC Health may have compromised patient information.

On September 4, 2019, Cincinnati-based health care center UC Health released a notice that a phishing attack may have compromised patient information. The compromised email accounts contained various information about patients, such as their names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and clinical information.

The incident.

UC Health learned that between July 6, 2019, and July 12, 2019, an unauthorized third party gained access to some of the employee email accounts. As soon as UC Health identified the attack, it hired cybersecurity experts to investigate. UC Health is currently in the process of reviewing the email accounts to identify the extent of the breach and any patient information that could have been stolen from the emails. The company is also improving its email security, and giving employees training on email best practices to avoid such incidents in the future. As of now, there has been no evidence of patient data being misused.

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