34K Patient Accounts of Medical Company Quest Diagnostics Exposed by Hackers

Quest Diagnostics is a Medical Company, which provides diagnosis services to patients. This New Jersey (United States) based company is providing medical services through mobile applications and as well as the web portal. Quest Diagnostics was founded in 1967 and today it is running operations in various countries including Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, United Kingdom and INDIA. To increase its reach, Quest Diagnostics has collaborated with multiple international hospitals and clinics. Quest Diagnostics has been hit by a major cyber-attack and the 34,000 accounts of its patients are at risk. The company has revealed this data breach on Monday.

How did it Happen?

The internal systems of Quest Diagnostics have been accessed by unauthorized cyber crooks on 26th November 2016. The security team of Quest Diagnostics was investigating this data breach and they confirmed that the personal medical information of 34K patients has been stolen by the hackers. The stolen information includes patient names, date of births, contact numbers, and their medical reports.

"In actual, hackers have stolen this information through the official mobile application of Quest Diagnostics, which connects all its patients with their lab reports. It means, the mobile application was vulnerable and hackers managed to hack internal systems of Quest Diagnostic by exploiting it."

What About Payment Card Details?

The biggest relief for victims is, their credit card and debit card details are safe. The information of payment card was not available in the breached database. Moreover, SSN (Social Security Numbers) of patients, other Financial Information and Details of Insurance Policies are also safe. The company is also saying that the stolen information has not been misused by the hackers yet. All the victims have been informed by the Quest Diagnostics about this data breach. There is not any information available about the specific locations or regions, the victims belong to.

Response of The Company

Quest Diagnostics has informed the law enforcement authorities about this data breach. The company has patched the security loophole in its app “MyQuest by Care360” from where intruders managed to steal 30K patient accounts. The company also promised to its customers that they will take care of their personal information in future.

Conclusion

Nowadays, hackers are targeting hospitality and medical industry. The medical companies should aware its employees about the latest cyber security trends. There is a need for some extra security precautions to keep the hackers away from personal health information of the patients. The hackers could misuse the stolen information by manipulating the patients and by selling them counterfeit medicines which could even kill them. Moreover, the hackers could sell the stolen information to other medical companies or on the dark web.

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