We reported to you earlier that over 181,000 MEDICAID/CHIP enrollees had their personal information stolen and 25,000 of those people had their Social Security numbers (SSNs) compromised after the Utah Department of Health was hacked. Unfortunately this was a conservative estimate, the hack is actually ten times worse than was expected.
The Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS), along with the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) announced yesterday that 280,000 SSNs may have been exposed in the incident.
“The victims are likely to be people who have visited a health care provider in the past four months. Some may be Medicaid or CHIP recipients; others are individuals whose health care providers were unsure as to their status as Medicaid recipients.”
Victims who had their SSNs stolen will receive one year of free credit monitoring services and now that there will be over ten times as many people receiving the service.
Victims of the hack are being warned that nobody from DTS or UDOH will be contacting them over the phone and they are being instructed to refrain from giving any of their private information in response to phone and e-mail correspondence that they did not initiate.
If you or someone you know is a victim of the hack you can find more information and supportive services here.