On Your Side: CoxHealth data breach impacts potentially thousands of patients

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - CoxHealth, announced a vendor it uses experienced a significant data breach, potentially impacting thousands of CoxHealth patients.

Hackers infiltrated a third party used by CoxHealth’s systems, compromising sensitive patient information, including names, addresses, dates of birth, and social security numbers. CoxHealth disclosed the breach might have impacted more than 203,000 patients around the Ozarks through IntelliHartx LLC (ITx). In an email to KY3, Randy Berger, the Director, Corporate Communications for CoxHealth, did add “that analysts arrived at that number out of an abundance of caution.”

The hackers specifically targeted ITx’s Fortra’s Go Anywhere file transfer software, which shares large files over the internet. This cyberattack has affected CoxHealth and numerous organizations globally, underscoring the widespread nature of such breaches.

One affected patient, Leslie Leonard, expressed her concerns about the breach.

“It’s all handled by a third party, which makes it even less personal,” she says.

Leonard received a letter from Intellihartx, a Tennessee-based company, informing her that her personal information collected at CoxHealth may have been compromised. She anxiously awaits further letters addressed to her two young children, questioning whether their information is also at risk.

“I haven’t been to that hospital personally, that hospital system, in over three years. My children have. Is my children’s information compromised? I don’t know,” Leonard says.

Dr. Shannon McMurtrey, an Associate Professor of Cyber-Risk Management at Drury University, advises individuals who have received the letter to know to watch out for ways they may use that information to scam you more.

“Be really wary of any phone calls or texts you get. And just really thinking critically about anything along those lines so that you don’t fall victim to another one,” he says. “There was probably nothing additionally exposed that wasn’t already out there. At this stage of the game, you need to assume your data has been breached somewhere.”

ITx offers free credit monitoring services for one year to individuals potentially impacted by the breach through Experian Identity Works. This service aims to provide added security and early detection of unauthorized activities related to affected individuals’ credit profiles. Enrolling in this credit monitoring program is highly recommended for those who received the notification letter.

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