TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) — Tallahassee Memorial Hospital has started sending out letters to people impacted by an IT security breach after announcing Friday that 20,000 people were affected.
Information like names, addresses and social security number became available to attackers during this breach.
TMH is not giving any more details about who was behind this attack because it is still under investigation.
An IT security expert and professor from the University of Florida said this can happen to just about anyone, even if you have decent IT security.
"So, no matter how much you upgrade, a sophisticated attacker, like researchers in my group, will be able to attack anything because we got ahead," said professor Prabhat Mishra. "But most of the places that get hacked, they don't even have bare minimum checks and balances."
University of Florida Computer Science professor Prabhat Mishra said an attack as big of this could have started with something small.
"Opening a webpage and clicking and visiting some webpage, that pretty much could be it's triggering point if it's a really weak network," Mishra said. "If it's a really hard network, I need to send you some fake message, make you believe I am someone legitimate and get your account information. "
Although Tallahassee Memorial Hospital is not answering the questions about how this happened or who is behind the attack, Mishra explained different scenarios of how easy it can be for a hacker to get your information and what they can do with it.
When asked who was impacted, officials with TMH said it "...involved a limited number of patients."
But, those patients have had their names, dates of birth, addresses and social security numbers compromised by hackers.
TMH says they detected unusual activity involving their computer systems during the early morning hours of February 3, 2023, adding they "...took immediate action to contain the event, including reporting it to law enforcement and launching an investigation with independent experts."
No financial or medical records were accessed, but Mishra said this could still put people impacted at risk of blackmail or identity theft.
Officials with TMH wrote in a statement that all impacted will be notified by April 14.
Until then, Mishra said there are a few ways people can track to see if they were impacted by the breach.
"You have to really kind of check your bank account and whatever things you think could be jeopardized," Mishra said. "You can check your bank account for a credit card in your name. "
