A data breach at a healthcare system in Connecticut affecting over 5.5 million people has been disclosed in a legally required notice with the U.S. government’s health department.
The healthcare system, Yale New Haven, reported that malicious hackers were able to access patients’ personally identifiable information and some healthcare-related data in a cyberattack that took place in March.
According to a notice on the healthcare system’s website, the stolen data may include patient names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, race and ethnicity data, Social Security numbers, as well as information about patient types and medical record numbers.
Reports from local media quoted the healthcare system’s spokesperson mentioning that the number of affected individuals could change. A Yale New Haven spokesperson did not provide immediate comment when reached out to by TechCrunch.
This marks the second major healthcare data breach this week, following Blue Shield of California’s disclosure of sharing health data of 4.7 million patients with Google over a period of several years.
