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On June 3rd, 2019, medical testing company Quest Diagnostics announced a hacker had accessed clients’ demographic and financial data, including social security numbers, via an online payment system. The companies involved remain unclear on the exact date of the breach: it seems to have happened at some point between August 2018 and March 2019.
This is an extremely large breach, and it could have disastrous effects for the 11.9 million clients whose data was compromised. Thankfully, you can take a few simple steps to protect your most sensitive information.
The good news is that the hacker didn’t breach any medical data. The breach happened through the American Medical Collection Agency, the company Quest Diagnostics contracts its financials through.
HIPAA requires that AMCA not receive access to medical data. In general hackers aren’t interested in it anyway, because it’s far more difficult to get ahold of, and less likely someone will buy it.
As of this writing, Quest hasn’t begun notifying clients that their data may be compromised. However, it’s likely they’ll be doing that over the coming days and weeks, along with giving information about exactly what data was breached.
In the meantime, it pays to be prudent. Follow these steps to proactively protect your data:
A major data breach like this one can upend your life. With a little care, you can prevent fraud and do everything in your power to get the situation back under your control.
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