Health Care Patient, Donor Data May Have Been Breached

Patients and donors to at least four different health care providers in Minnesota are being notified that their personal information may have been compromised.

The potential data breach involves hundreds of thousands of patients and donors at Children’s Minnesota, Allina Health, Regions Hospital and Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare.

The hack is part of a ransomware attack on a cloud computing company called Blackbaud, which manages databases for a number of nonprofits.

“Since learning of this incident, we have been working with Blackbaud to understand the scope of the ransomware attack and the steps it is taking to prevent future data security incidents,” a statement from Allina Health said. “Our security experts have evaluated Blackbaud’s security protocols and feel confident it has taken the appropriate action to further protect the information entrusted to it.”

More than 200,000 patients and donors from Allina Health hospitals and clinics and more than 160,000 patients and donors at Children’s Minnesota have been notified of the possible data breach.

Children’s Minnesota has told those involved to check their medical bills for signs of fraud.

Allina’s breach notice says the information involved, including names, addresses and possibly medical information, does not put individuals at risk for identity or financial theft, the Star Tribune reported.

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