Notice to our Patients About an Email Security Incident

McLeod Health (“McLeod”) is committed to protecting the confidentiality and security of our patients’ information. Regrettably, we are addressing an email security incident that may involve some of that information.

McLeod is currently reviewing the contents of an email account that was accessed by an unauthorized actor between April 13, 2020 and April 16, 2020. McLeod became aware of suspicious activity on June 23, 2020 and, following a detailed forensic review of our email environment, confirmed on August 19, 2020 that the contents of the email account were automatically downloaded by the unauthorized actor in April.

As part of our response, we secured the account and modified the account settings across our environment to help prevent a similar incident. We are also performing a thorough review of the contents of the email account to identify any patient information that may have been accessible to the unauthorized party. We will update this notice as we obtain more information about the nature and scope of any patient information involved, and we will notify any affected patients as soon as possible thereafter.

While we complete our investigation, we have established a dedicated call center for McLeod patients to call with questions. Please call 1-888-669-5940 Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time, for additional information. We also recommend that patients regularly review the statements they receive from their healthcare providers. If they see services they did not receive, we recommend contacting the provider immediately.

We take the privacy and confidentiality of our patients’ information very seriously, and deeply regret any inconvenience or concern this incident may cause our patients and their families. To help prevent something like this from happening again, we have modified internal settings that allowed some devices to bypass our multi-factor authentication process, and we have provided additional education to employees on email security.