There are only 300,000 Utah people enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP, however sensitive information about 780,000 people were taken by computer hackers two weeks ago. Victims are those who saw a health care provider in the last four months.
Scope of Utah Medicaid
data breach explodes
By kirsten stewart
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Social Security numbers
of an additional 255,000 Utahns may have been exposed to hackers in last week’s
data breach, while less sensitive information — such as names and birth dates —
from 350,000 people may have been released.
State officials announced
the new, dramatically higher numbers at a Monday press conference. They now
estimate the Social Security numbers of a total of 280,000 patients, plus other
information about another 500,000, were exposed.
The victims were likely
people who saw a health care provider in the last four months, they said.
Two Sundays ago, hackers
believed to be operating from Eastern Europe broke into an
inadequately-protected computer server at the Utah Department of Health.
The breach was initially
reported as involving 24,000 claims. As the investigation progressed, officials
said hackers stole information from 181,604 Medicaid and Children’s Health
Insurance Program recipients between April 1 and April 2.
Of those clients, officials
initially said 25,096 had their Social Security numbers compromised.
At Monday’s press
conference, officials said the newly-identified victims may have been Medicaid
or CHIP patients, or could be patients of providers who were uncertain about
their coverage.
The state’s computer
systems are the responsibility of the Department of Technology Services. The
breach is being blamed on employee who put a server online without its proper
security. State officials believe it was a mistake and have declined to name
the employee.
The state manages 260,000
Medicaid clients and 40,000 in CHIP. About two out of three Medicaid recipients
are children.
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Help for hacking victims
Protect yourself •
Concerned Medicaid clients can call 1-800-662-9651 or go online to get more
information on how to protect themselves and their identities.
Protect your child • The
Utah Attorney General’s Child Identity Protection provides a secure process to
enroll a child’s information with the national credit reporting company
TransUnion.
