HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal with a submission date of March 29, 2019.
- Organization as reported
- Women’s Health USA, Inc., CT
- Entity type as reported
- Business Associate
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Desktop Computer, Email
- Submission date
- March 29, 2019
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 13482, row:4621)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
On February 15, 2019, the covered entity (CE), Women’s Health USA, Inc., discovered a phishing attack that targeted employee emails and resulted in the unauthorized auto-forwarding of copies of incoming e-mails to an e-mail account unaffiliated with the CE or the employee. The incident affected the protected health information (PHI) of approximately 17,531 individuals and included patient’s names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, Medicare claim numbers, health insurance policy numbers, diagnoses, and treatment information. The CE provided breach notification to HHS, affected individuals, and the media. As a result of the breach, the CE began implementing two-factor authentication, retrained employees, and disabled email forwarding capabilities.