Thieves steal laptop with personal data of 650,000 Oregonians
Published 10:09 am Wednesday, February 12, 2020
- More than 1.7 million members of the Oregon Health Plan whose personal data was stolen by hackers were left in the dark for six weeks by the obscure technology firm in charge of the data, despite repeated pleas from state health officials that it speed up disclosure, The Oregonian reported.
Thieves broke into a medical transportation company’s office in November and made off with a laptop that had the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 650,000 Oregon Health Plan members, Health Share of Oregon said.
“We are ensuring that members, partners, regulators and the community are made fully aware of this issue,” the company’s interim CEO, Dr. Maggie Bennington-Davis, said in a statement.
The stolen information included phone numbers, dates of birth and Medicaid ID numbers, but personal medical histories were not part of the data breach, Health Share said.
The laptop was stolen from GridWorks IC, a company that contracts with Health Share, Health Share said in its statement.
Health Share of Oregon is a coordinated care organization that manages health care for people on Medicaid in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties. It is the largest such organization in the state.