The largest independent group of physicians in Illinois notified hundreds of thousands of patients last Monday that their personal information may have been exposed. This is the largest reported health-related cybersecurity incident in Illinois so far this year, however such breaches are becoming common due to poor cybersecurity infrastructure.
Potential leaked patient information includes names, addresses, dates of birth, diagnosis codes, information on medical procedures, and treatment dates. For some patients, there is a chance that their Social Security number may also have been compromised.
The cyber-attack, which took place on July 13th, caused a network outage at DMG. Third-party cyber-forensic specialists hired to investigate the security incident determined that unauthorized threat actors had gained access to the DMG network between July 12th, 2021, and July 13th, 2021.
While the investigation determined that only certain portions of the network were impacted, DuPage Medical Group conducted a thorough investigation and could not rule out the possibility that files containing patients' information may have been critically affected.
DMG stated. "We take this incident seriously, and as an added precaution, DMG is offering credit monitoring and identify theft protection at no cost for those individuals affected and potentially affected by this incident,"