Malware hits Advantage dental database
Oregon based Advantage Dental suffered data breach when its internal database was attacked by malware. The unauthorized access affected 151,626 Advantage patients. The compromised information includes names, dates of birth, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, and home addresses. According to the reports, treatment, payment, and other financial data were not accessed.
“Since terminating the illegal access, Advantage has been reviewing and improving its safeguards, implemented mitigation steps to prevent further access and has been working with law enforcement to properly determine the scope of the incident and any additional steps that might be required,” the statement read. “At this time, Advantage has no indication that the stolen information has been used for criminal activity, to include identity theft.”
Advantage Compliance Manager Jeff Dover told that the theft happened after the malware accessed an Advantage employee’s computer. Username and password that allows access to the membership database was stolen from there. This is a separate database from the one that contains financial and treatment information.
“Unfortunately this happened,” Dover said, adding that Advantage computers are equipped with anti-virus software, but sometimes new variations of a virus are not detected. “What you can do is be as transparent as you can, take responsibility for it, learn from it and then move on.”
After this incident, Advantage is no longer allowing access to its internal patient database from computers that are not within company clinics or its Redmond headquarters.
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