Posted On May 17, 2022 Consumer Privacy & Data Breaches
May 17, 2022 – Jackson County Hospital District (“Jackson Hospital”) reported a data breach after the company was targeted in a recent cybersecurity attack. As a result of the breach, the name, date of birth, contact information, Social Security number, and medical/health information of certain individuals was compromised. The Jackson County Hospital data breach is believed to have impacted as many as 98,746 individuals. On May 6, 2022, Jackson County Hospital sent out data breach letters to those individuals whose information was affected by the breach.
The data breach lawyers at Console & Associates, P.C. are going to begin interviewing victims of the breach to determine what damages they sustained and what legal claims may be available to them. If you recently received a NOTICE OF DATA BREACH from Jackson County Hospital, contact us at (866) 778-5500 to discuss your legal options, or submit a confidential contact form, for a free case evaluation.
Below is a portion of the letter that Jackson County Hospital District sent to individuals affected by the data breach:
Dear <<Name 1>>:
Jackson County Hospital District (“Jackson Hospital”) writes to inform you of an incident that may affect the security of some of your personal information. This notice provides information about the incident, our response, and resources available to you to help protect your information from possible misuse, should you feel it necessary to do so.
What Happened? On or about January 9, 2022, Jackson Hospital observed unusual activity related to the inaccessibility of certain systems within its network. We quickly began investigating to better understand the nature and scope of this activity. Jackson Hospital worked with third-party cybersecurity specialists to determine the full scope and impact of this incident. On or about January 11, 2022, the investigation confirmed an unknown actor accessed Jackson Hospital’s systems and took certain, limited data from its systems. Jackson Hospital took steps to quickly contain the threat and enable hospital operations, including services to patients, to continue uninterrupted. We simultaneously launched a full investigation designed to understand the nature and scope of what occurred, what information was stored on impacted systems at the time of the incident, and to whom that information relates. This process completed on March 18, 2022. Jackson Hospital worked diligently to locate address information for the potentially affected individuals and just recently completed that effort.
<<What Information Was Involved? The investigation could not confirm whether information related to you was accessed or viewed during this incident. As a result, Jackson Hospital is notifying you out of an abundance of caution. The information
related to you that was accessible during this incident may include your name and one or more of the following elements: date of birth, contact information, Social Security number, medical history, medical condition or treatment information, medical record number, diagnosis code, and patient account number.>>
<<What Information Was Involved? The investigation could not confirm whether information related to you was accessed or viewed during this incident. As a result, Jackson Hospital is notifying you out of an abundance of caution. The information related to you that was accessible during this incident includes your name, address, date of birth, and Social Security number.>>
What We Are Doing. We take this incident and the security of personal information in our care seriously. Upon learning of this incident, we investigated and responded to the incident, assessed the security of relevant systems, and notified potentially affected individuals. Our response included resetting relevant account passwords, reviewing the contents of the impacted systems to determine whether they contained personal information, and reviewing internal systems to identify contact information for purposes of providing notice to potentially affected individuals. As part of our ongoing commitment to the security of information, we are also reviewing existing policies and procedures to reduce the likelihood of a similar future incident.
Jackson Hospital is notifying relevant state and federal regulators. We are also offering you access to complimentary credit monitoring and identity protection services for <<12/24>> months through Equifax. These services include fraud consultation and identity theft restoration services. If you wish to activate the credit monitoring and identity protection services, you may follow the instructions included in the Steps You Can Take to Protect Personal Information.
