A class action lawsuit accuses a Roanoke health care provider of failing to prevent a data breach that compromised the personal information of more than 147,000 current and former patients.
A lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke says the doctor and the woman failed to take reasonable steps to protect patients from an incident in which an unknown person gained access to the company’s computer network.
The complaint states that individuals’ names, social security numbers, dates of birth, financial information, and medical information were stolen, putting them at a “lifelong risk of identity theft.”
The Richmond and Miami law firms that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the woman are asking a federal judge to certify the case as a class action, which would allow others to join the lawsuit. will be able to seek compensation for damages.
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Calls to the obstetrics and gynecology clinic were not returned on Tuesday.
However, a notice on Physicians to Women’s website states that it learned of “suspicious activity” on its network on April 4, 2023 and immediately took steps to secure its systems. A data research firm has been hired to identify affected files and is working to notify “as many affected individuals as possible,” the notice states. He did not mention the number of victims.
The doctor and the woman said they were “not aware of any actual or attempted misuse of information as a result of this incident.”
Notifications to affected patients began on January 26, according to the complaint.
Victims face the risk of having their information sold on the dark web and are forced to periodically review their financial records, according to the complaint.
Medical records are particularly vulnerable to data breaches, accounting for approximately 18% of the 1,862 incidents recorded by the Identity Theft Resource Center in 2021.
Physicians to Women should have known its information would be targeted by cybercriminals, but failed to follow medical privacy rules and guidelines recommended by the Federal Trade Commission, the complaint alleges. are doing.
The lawsuit asks the judge to require stronger security measures, including data encryption. It also seeks unspecified damages for economic and psychological harm suffered by the theft victims.
Physicians to Women was founded in 1940 and serves patients in the Roanoke Valley and suburbs.
