State health officials say they have been notified about a breach of protected health information which occurred within Aging Partners in Lincoln. DHHS says a phishing scam caused the breach between May 18th and May 21 and that an unauthorized person gained access to emails accounts with more than 46-thousand emails.
DHHS says emails involving more than 15-hundred program participants contained protected information, such as address, date of birth, phone number and social security number. Most of the emails contained the names of program participants only.
A small number of emails in the information breach contained bank account or other financial information. These individuals will have the opportunity to take advantage of professional credit monitoring paid for by Aging Partners.
All program participants, whose protected health information may have been at risk for access or disclosure, will receive information from Aging Partners by First Class Mail. Affected consumers should call one of the toll-free numbers for the three major credit bureaus to obtain a free annual credit report in order to monitor any suspicious activity.
Participants should also consider placing a fraud alert on their credit report to prevent improper use of information. The monitoring bureaus are: Equifax, 800-685-1111 or at www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services; Experian, 888-397-3742 or Experian.com/help; and TransUnion 888-909-8872 or https://www.transunion.com/fraud-alerts.