US medical firm announces data breach

EmCare has announced it has suffered a data breach which exposed the personal information of tens of thousands of patients

The physician-staffing company said in a statement that an unauthorized party managed to gain access to patient information through employee email accounts.

The company learned on February 19 that the breach exposed names dates or birth, Social Security and drivers’ license numbers for some of the patients, as well employees and contractors working with EmCare.

A representative for EmCare said in a public release that the breached employee email accounts contained personal information on fewer than 60,000 people. Of that number, about 31,000 were patients.

EmCare also revealed that it does not know if the personal information was taken and has said there’s no indication that the data was used for fraud and/or identity theft.

The Associated Press reported that EmCare had arranged for identity protection, as well as credit monitoring services, for patients and employees whose Social Security and/or license numbers were exposed.