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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 22, 2019)
A3 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019 State data breach exposes personal health information By AUBREY WIEBER Oregon Capital Bureau The Oregon Depart- ment of Human Services on Thursday disclosed that millions of agency emails had been breached in Jan- uary, potentially exposing the personal medical infor- mation of hundreds of thou- sands of people. The agency said it dis- covered the data breach involving 2 million emails on Jan. 8 and by Jan. 28 realized the emails included personal medical informa- tion protected under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA. The agency hasn’t con- fi rmed that any informa- tion was actually taken, but the hackers gained access to the emails. Agency offi cials couldn’t readily explain why the public was being alerted two months later. Robert Oakes, a depart- ment spokesman, said the agency found there was the potential for the breach to impact at least 350,000 people . Oregon’s Identity Theft Protection Act requires agencies to alert the public when there is potential to cross that 350,000 thresh- old. A more specifi c number should be available in about two weeks, Oakes said. When asked why the Information at the state Department of Human Services was exposed in a data breach. public wasn’t notifi ed in January, he said it took time to go through the large num- ber of emails to fi gure out what was exposed. When asked what happened in the two months since the dis- covery of the breach, Oakes declined to elaborate, say- ing, “It just took time.” “We want to make it publicly available out of an abundance of caution,” Oakes said. The delay in informing the public, and the breach itself, caught the atten- tion of Republicans in the Capitol long critical of the Department of Human Services . “Nearly two months passed before DHS revealed that its system had been compromised, exposing S ocial S ecurity numbers, birth dates and additional personal infor- mation,” House Republi- can spokesman Greg Stiles said in a news release. “This risks identity theft and other criminal exploitation of this data.” The phishing scheme gained the perpetrators access to email records EMERALD HEIGHTS APARTMENTS that included health infor- mation . Oakes said there weren’t specifi c fi les tar- geted, but some of the com- promised emails included spreadsheets with personal information. Oakes said the agency provides services to 1.6 million people, and the data breach could impact anyone from those involved in the foster care system, to those receiving food assistance to the elderly or disabled. Among the information compromised was S ocial S ecurity numbers and dates of birth, Oakes said. The agency has hired an outside fi rm, IDExperts, to review the issue and con- fi rm the number of people exposed in the breach and what information was com- promised. That work will cost the state $480,000. According to the news release, nine department employees opened a spam email which appeared to be from a government account. It asked recipients to click a link and log in with their email and password. That gave the hacker access to those nine accounts. Oakes said the nine employees were spread throughout the agency. He didn’t know how many total employees received the email, but said it was “extensive.” Oakes said all 8,500 department employees have to go through train- ing to protect against secu- rity risks , which tells them to avoid anything question- able and provides resources they can seek if they fear an email could be a scheme. But this one was sophisti- cated, he said. “It looked like some- thing, depending on your role, that you would do through the normal course of business,” Oakes said. Those nine email boxes contained nearly 2 million emails. The nine accounts were frozen on Jan. 8 as state experts worked to understand the issue, Oakes said. The outside fi rm is now working to directly identify people whose information was exposed. It will then contact those people and inform them on how to pro- tect themselves. WANTED Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber Northwest Hardwoods • Longview, WA Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500 Astoria, OR For START HERE GO ANYWHERE GAIN SKILLS AND KNOWLEDGE TO BE READY WHEN THAT PERFECT JOB COMES ALONG PREPARE FOR YOUR FUTURE Now Available! Vessel Operation Criminal Justice Fire Science OR Clatsop Community College is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution. ADA accessible. 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