14 DAY TRIAL // On October 12, thieves managed to break into the administration offices of a hospital in Alhambra, a city located in the Los Angeles County of California, and steal a couple of laptops containing the details of 729,000 patients.
According to the LA Times, the laptops contained the names, Medicare/insurance IDs, diagnosis, social security numbers and insurance/patient payments of patients treated at various AHMC hospitals.
The list includes the Monterey Park Hospital, Garfield Medical Center, San Gabriel Valley Medical Center, Whittier Hospital Medical Center, Greater El Monte Community Hospital, and Anaheim Regional Medical Center.
Fortunately, the social security numbers of only 10% of the affected patients have been compromised, more precisely those on Medicare.
The thieves managed to break in, despite the fact that the office is located on the sixth floor of a building that’s video monitored. In addition, the offices are in a medical campus that’s patrolled by security and gated.
For the time being, there’s no evidence that the information on the devices has been misused. However, AHMC officials advise impacted individuals to place fraud alerts on their credit files and keep a close eye on their credit reports for any suspicious transactions.
When the theft occurred, AHMC had already been in the process of beefing up security as a result of recommendations made by an auditing firm. However, following the incident, the company’s representatives say they’ll speed up the process of encrypting information stored on laptops.
Police have launched an investigation and they already have a suspect, whom they’ve identified based on surveillance camera footage. His name is Christopher Lee Brown, aka Allen Markous. His girlfriend worked at the offices where the theft took place, CBS Los Angeles reports.
A warrant has been issued, but authorities haven’t been able to find him yet.