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Friday, July 17, 2015

Cyber Attack at UCLA Health

From the UCLA Newsroom:

On May 5, 2015, we determined that the attacker had accessed parts of the UCLA Health network that contain personal information, like name, address, date of birth, social security number, medical record number, Medicare or health plan ID number, and some medical information (e.g., medical condition, medications, procedures, and test results).We have notified and are working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding this cyber attack. We continue to investigate the attack with help from third-party computer forensics experts. There are indications that the attacker may have had access to the UCLA Health network as early as September 2014. Our investigation is on-going. Our investigation has revealed that the personal information of about 4.5 million individuals, including UCLA Health patients and providers who sought privileges at any UCLA Health hospital, was maintained on the impacted parts of the UCLA Health network. At this time, there is no evidence that the attacker actually accessed or acquired the personal or medical information maintained on the impacted parts of the UCLA Health network, but we cannot conclusively rule out that possibility. Thus, we wanted to make potentially impacted individuals aware of this cyber attack and provide them with information about how to protect themselves...

Full news release at https://www.uclahealth.org/pages/data2015.html#Release 

If you click on the link above, you will find - among other information - how to contact the three credit rating agencies. You can "freeze" your credit at those agencies which will help prevent ID theft. It's not a big deal to do. There is some hassle if you want to do something such as obtain a new credit card or mortgage. In such cases, you will have to arrange to unfreeze your account with the relevant agency for a brief period. Yours truly has kept his credit frozen for years since an earlier UCLA computer incident. Temporary unfreezing is a bit of a hassle but being safe is worth it.

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