Women's Health USA

On February 15, 2019, the covered entity (CE), Women’s Health USA, Inc., discovered a phishing attack that targeted employee emails and resulted in the unauthorized auto-forwarding of copies of incoming e-mails to an e-mail account unaffiliated with the CE or the employee. The incident affected the protected health information (PHI) of approximately 17,531 individuals and included patient’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, Medicare claim numbers, health insurance policy numbers, diagnoses, and treatment information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. As a result of the breach, the CE began implementing two-factor authentication, retrained employees, and disabled email forwarding capabilities.