Welltok data breach exposes data of 8.5 million US patients

Healthcare SaaS provider Welltok is warning that a data breach exposed the personal data of nearly 8.5 million patients in the U.S. after a file transfer program used by the company was hacked in a data theft attack.

Welltok works with health service providers across the U.S., maintaining online wellness programs, holding databases with personal patient data, generating predictive analytics, and supporting healthcare needs like medication adherence and pandemic response.

Earlier this year, the Clop ransomware gang exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the MOVEit software to breach thousands of organizations worldwide, following up with extortion demands and data leaks impacting over 77 million people.

Welltok published a notice of a data incident in late October, warning that its MOVEit Transfer server was breached on July 26, 2023. This occurred despite applying the security updates as soon as those were made available by the vendor.

Patient data was exposed during the breach, including full names, email addresses, physical addresses, and telephone numbers. For some, it also includes Social Security Numbers (SSNs), Medicare/Medicaid ID numbers, and certain Health Insurance information.

The impact of the breach impacted institutions in various states, including Minnesota, Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, and Massachusetts, with the following healthcare providers said to be impacted:

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and Blue Plus
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina
• Corewell Health
• Faith Regional Health Services
• Hospital & Medical Foundation of Paris, Inc. dba Horizon Health
• Mass General Brigham Health Plan
• Priority Health
• St. Bernards Healthcare
• Sutter Health
• Trane Technologies Company LLC and/or group health plans sponsored by Trane Technologies Company LLC or Trane U.S. Inc.
• The group health plans of Stanford Health Care, of Stanford Health Care, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, Stanford Medicine Partners, and Packard Children’s Health Alliance
• The Guthrie Clinic

Initial estimates about the number of impacted individuals varied as Welltok didn’t immediately disclose this information.

However, earlier today, the firm reported on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services breach portal that the data breach has been confirmed to impact 8,493,379 people.

This figure places the Welltok breach as the second largest MOVEit data breach after services contractor Maximus, whose data breach affected 11 million people.