CA Cyberattack Targets Patient Protected Health Information

A cyberattack on a third-party vendor is impacting Community Memorial Health System patients’ protected health information (PHI.)  

According to a data breach notification, the cyberattack occurred in January and is impacting patients’ PHI of the Ventura, California-based health facility.  

Guidehouse, which provides services to Community Memorial Health System involving medical claims billing and collection services, sent the notice to the impacted individuals.  

“We regret that this incident occurred and take the security of personal information seriously,” the notice states. 

Guidehouse, on behalf of Community Memorial Health System, reported the data breach to the California Attorney General’s office on July 16.  

“We recently learned in late March 2021 that we had been the victim of a cyber-attack,” the notice states. “The attack occurred in late January 2021 and involved the compromise of a third-party service used for secure file transfer for many clients including Community Memorial Health System located in Ventura, California.”  

The information involved in the data breach includes patients' names, dates of birth, member IDs, addresses, and medical information.  

The notice states that Guidehouse “launched an investigation and have since ceased using the third-party service that had been compromised. We have cooperated with federal law enforcement and engaged leading cyber security experts in connection with investigating and responding to the incident. Based on the nature of the incident, it has taken time to accurately determine what data was impacted. After determining Community Memorial Health System information was impacted, we notified Community Memorial Health System on May 21, 2021.”  

Although the investigation has not shown any misuse of patient data, the company is providing impacted individuals with two years of credit monitoring services.  

Impacted individuals can call the Experian customer care team at 866-904-6215 by October 31, 2021 to enroll.