Law Enforcement Health Benefits (LEHB), health and welfare funds for Philadelphia police offers, sheriffs, and county detectives, disclosed that the company was hit by a ransomware attack in 2021. "The Conti ransomware group has been responsible for a large number of these incidents, successfully attacking at least 16 US healthcare organizations and first responder networks during the year – as well as Ireland’s Health Service Executive and Department of Health," writes The Daily Swig.
According to LEHB, attackers started coding files stored in the company network on 14 September 2021. An inquiry into the issue revealed that on Friday 25th, 'few affected files' containing members' data might have been excluded from the network by threat actors. Suspicious access to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) breach portal hints that more than 85,000 users from LEHB may have been impacted by the incident. The compromised data includes names, DoBs, Social Security numbers, driving license info, bank account numbers, and health information.
However, every LEHB member wasn't affected, and the data elements mentioned above were also not the same for every member. LEHB denies any case of identity theft or abuse of compromised data from the ransomware hit. However, the incident impacted members and offered credit monitoring services to those whose Social Security numbers might have been used. The health plan provider suggests its members set up 'fraud alerts' and security freezes on credit files, and ask for a free credit report.
Cyber attack incidents are getting sophisticated as each day passes, resulting in LEHB implementing extra precautionary steps to protect its network and enhance internal procedures to detect and mitigate future cybersecurity threats. LEHB is assessing and updating its company policies and procedures to reduce the chances of ransomware incidents in the future.
The Daily Swig reports "the healthcare sector has been particularly hard hit by ransomware since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the FBI’s 2021 Internet Crime Report revealing earlier this month that of all critical infrastructure sectors, it was healthcare that faced the most ransomware attacks last year."
