Lost thumb drive leads to potential data breach
A thumb drive containing personal data of current and past graduate medical education residents and fellows at Cooper University Hospital has recently gone missing. Lost around July 8th, the incident has been reported to the proper authorites a few days later who are now looking into the potential security breach only two weeks later.
According to hospital sources, the lost data includes Social Security numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. As it always happens in such cases, the data was not in anyway encrypted or protected.
The University later released the following statement:
“Cooper University Hospital is investigating the circumstances surrounding a missing thumb drive. The thumb drive contained information with personal data about graduate medical education residents and fellows for the current and prior academic years. We have advised the residents and fellows who were advised to contact their local police. No other employee information was compromised. Further, No patient information or records were compromised. The incident was reported to the New Jersey State Police Cyber Crimes Unit on Friday, July 23 as per the state notification procedure. The hospital is conducting a thorough investigation and has initiated an aggressive plan to protect any personnel who could be affected by this potential security breach.”
As of yet there are no information on the number of individuals affected by the breach.
