Sunday, July 25th, 2010
By David Hasemyer
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
July 17, 2009
LA JOLLA – The hotline established by UCSD’s Moores Cancer Center after a hacker breached the center’s computers and gained access to patients’personal information has been swamped with hundreds of calls from worried patients.
Their primary concern has been whether their Social Security numbers were among the information stolen by whomever obtained the electronic files of 30,000 patients, according to DeAnn Marshall, UCSD Health Sciences chief of marketing and communications officer.
She said hospital officials have determined that just 36 of the files contained Social Security numbers.
A letter was sent to all of the patients earlier this month telling them that the center’s computer network was “illegally accessed” twice by overseas hackers and that some personal information may have been stolen.
The Internet assault on the hospital’s computer records has sparked an investigation to determine the identity of the hackers and prompted hospital officials to begin a review of security measures to find any weakness and, if necessary, take additional precautions, Marshall said.
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