Lexington, South Carolina – A woman is suing Lexington Medical Center in federal court, saying that the hospital did not properly protect its patients’ personal information before and after a data breach last fall. Michelle Sutherland, who lives in Lexington County and has been a patient at the hospital for a long time, started the lawsuit.
The incident took place on October 4, 2023
Cybercriminals got into an employee’s email account and a personal data drive at Lexington Medical Center without permission on October 4, 2023. This was the breach in question. Because of this security flaw, the thieves were able to get away with files that contained private patient information. The event became public on February 12 when concerned patients were told about the incident and a report was sent to the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs.
In this message, the hospital stated that it had quickly responded to the breach by locking down the systems that had been hacked and hiring cybersecurity experts to find out how much data had been stolen. When the review was over on January 18, it was found that 1,942 people from South Carolina had been affected.
The stolen data included billing papers that could have names, birth dates, medical record numbers, health insurance IDs, and other sensitive information. It’s important to note that the hospital made it clear that electronic medical records were not viewed and that they still don’t know if any patients’ personal information has been misused.
Even though these promises were made, Sutherland said that after the breach she started getting a lot more spam calls, marketing emails, and texts she hadn’t asked for, along with fraud in her bank accounts. The case criticizes Lexington Medical Center for taking so long to tell patients, saying that for four months, the hospital let hackers have free access to patient data. As a result of the breach, Lexington Medical Center has set up a dedicated call line to handle concerns and given affected patients free access to Experian IdentityWorks Credit 3B, a service that protects against identity theft.
The lawsuit seeks class-action status, which would enable other affected patients to join the legal action against the hospital. The lawsuit asks for both compensatory and punitive damages, but the exact amount of money that is being asked for has not been made public.
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More and more people are worried about how safe personal information is in healthcare institutions, and this case shows how data breaches can hurt people’s privacy and financial safety.
