The covered entity (CE), Mercy Iowa City, reported that an employee was the victim of an email phishing attack that affected the electronic protected health information (ePHI) of 92,795 individuals. The ePHI involved included names, addresses, dates of birth, drivers’ license numbers, Social Security numbers, health insurance information, and other treatment information. The CE notified HHS, affected individuals, and the media. In addition, the CE offered complimentary credit monitoring services to all affected individuals. In response to the breach, the CE implemented additional technical safeguards to better protect its ePHI and retrained its staff of recognizing and responding to fraudulent email communications. OCR obtained assurances that the CE implemented the corrective actions noted.
