Late last week, Partners HealthCare announced that it notified approximately 3,300 patients of a security breach involving a hacking incident where intruders accessed medical and personal information of patients.

Partners acknowledged that the hackers were able to infiltrate the security of its system through phishing e-mails that employees opened, exposing their e-mail accounts to unauthorized intruders.

The information included in the exposed data included patients’ Social Security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and medical and health insurance information.

It is well-known that hackers are and will continue to target health care organizations and this is a strong reminder to health care entities to implement a strong employee training program to educate employees about e-mail phishing and other ploys commonly used by cyber criminals.

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