On July 16, 2018, Sunspire Health submitted a HIPAA Email Breach to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Located in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Sunspire Health's email breach affected 6,737 individuals’ protected health information. Sunspire Health is classified as a Healthcare Provider. According to Sunspire Health’s statement:
Sunspire Health (“Sunspire”) is taking action after discovering that it became the target of a phishing email campaign that compromised several employee email account credentials.
Although there is no indication to date of actual or attempted misuse of patient information, Sunspire is notifying individuals whose records were or may have been subject to unauthorized access and providing these individuals with information and resources to help protect them against the possibility of identity theft or fraud.
The company is also informing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and appropriate state authorities about this incident. Sunspire continues to investigate the incident and has implemented supplemental technical and administrative protections and training protocols to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
What Happened Between April 10, 2018 and May 17, 2018, Sunspire learned that its employees became the target of a phishing email campaign that compromised several email accounts. Upon learning of this incident, Sunspire took immediate steps to secure the email accounts and has launched an investigation to determine whether any sensitive information was accessed.
With the help of third-party computer forensic investigators, Sunspire has determined that unknown individuals may have gained access to certain Sunspire employee email accounts between March 1, 2018 and May 4, 2018. As part of this ongoing investigation, Sunspire recently determined that the compromised email accounts may have contained some patient information, which may include client names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, treatment and diagnosis information, health insurance information.
To date, there is no evidence that the information in the emails has been misused in any way. Sunspire is providing notice to impacted individuals and will provide credit and identity monitoring services to such individuals at no charge.
The HHS Wall of Shame is a website under the jurisdiction of HHS that lists all HIPAA breaches reported within the last 24 months. The Wall of Shame displays breaches that are currently under investigation by the Office for Civil Rights. As part of section 13402(e)(4) of the HITECH Act, the HHS Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals.
The Paubox HIPAA Breach Report analyzes breaches that affected 500 or more individuals as reported in the HHS Wall of Shame.