Fairbanks North Star Borough

The covered entity (CE) reported that on April 14, 2018, a business associate (BA), Golden Heart Administrative Professionals, Inc., was subject to a ransomware attack that encrypted approximately 6,346 individuals' protected health information (PHI) maintained in its computer system. The types of PHI encrypted included demographic, financial, and clinical information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media, posted a link to the notice on its website, offered complimentary credit monitoring, and provided a dedicated toll-free number to answer inquiries. The CE ended the BA agreement with the BA; the BA returned the physical records to the CE and destroyed all the CE’s PHI from its systems. OCR provided substantial technical assistance to the CE and obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted above.