Five Points Eye Care , an eye care hospital located in Athens, Georgia, USA , has reported a data breach .
Its facilities, located on South Milledge , announced that unauthorized access to network occurred in late October and was reported to relevant law enforcement authorities.
As the company stated: “At Five Points Eye Care, patient care is at the heart of our mission and we take seriously the confidentiality of the information of every patient we treat.”
However, even with this policy, on October 27, 2020, an unauthorized person was able to gain access to the eye hospital’s computer network, which they discovered the same day. The access was limited to correspondence sent to their office by other attending physicians. The correspondence can include names, dates of birth, social security numbers, physical addresses, medications, and treatment plans. Fortunately, the correspondence did not include other sensitive or confidential information , such as patient financial information
At this time, there is no indication that patient personal information was misused. This incident has been reported to law enforcement. Five Points Eye Care has consulted with an IT professional and conducted a search of its computer system to ensure that the unauthorized person did not have access to additional information.
To avoid a similar incident in the future, Five Points Eye Care has worked with the IT professional to also increase the security of its computers and protect system from unauthorized individuals. Patients affected by the breach have already been notified and have been offered free credit card monitoring for a full year.
