The US healthcare sector is struggling to cope with the ill—effects of covid-19. There is a widespread effort to deal with the impacts. However, amidst these efforts, data security is a growing concern. The increasing breaches incidents are a concern for enterprises, healthcare providers, and individuals. The current misconfigured database of the California public office is a new example.
A misconfigured database under the California Public Office has led to the exposure of sensitive medical information of US citizens.
In mid-California, the country of Kings has informed that the security lapses in its public webserver have exposed sensitive information on covid-19 patients on the internet. However, the office said only limited information had been leaked.
“An inquiry into the incident determined that the breach happened through an error made by third-party contractors and had existed on the public webserver of the country between the time period 15th February 2021 to 6th December 2021. As a result, the breach was totally corrected on 6th December 2021”, said the online notice.
Furthermore, the public office said the incident is less likely to lead to dire consequences. They said the information leaked might not be subjected to any significant breach. All the impacted individuals are notified of the misconfigured database by post.
The impacted individuals are also assured that no further action needs to be taken. However, a call center has been opened to clarify the issue. Details of the call center are provided in the notice available online.
“Our investigation could not rule out the possibility that some individuals’ information may have been viewable online as a result of the misconfiguration, including individuals’ names, dates of birth, addresses, and COVID-19 related information. On January 21, 2022, County of Kings began mailing letters to individuals whose information may have been involved in the incident. County of Kings has also established a toll-free, dedicated incident response line to answer questions that individuals may have. To help prevent something like this from happening again, County of Kings is taking steps to further protect COVID-19 information”, said the notice.