{"id":49249,"date":"2024-08-30T21:14:35","date_gmt":"2024-08-31T01:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49249"},"modified":"2024-08-30T21:14:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-31T01:14:40","slug":"lakelands-watson-clinic-notifies-patients-about-data-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/30\/lakelands-watson-clinic-notifies-patients-about-data-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland\u2019s Watson Clinic notifies patients about data breach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Patients at Lakeland\u2019s Watson Clinic <\/a>received letters notifying them about a breach in the network at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cData breaches are maybe the most common part of cybersecurity today,\u201d said Joshua Sitta, chief information security officer at Sittadel, a Lakeland-based cybersecurity company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a letter sent to potentially impacted patients, an unauthorized third party gained access to part of the network on Jan. 26, 2024, and Watson Clinic discovered the intrusion on Feb. 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watson Clinic spokesperson said the company\u2019s \u201cthorough review\u201d is now complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the exception of files containing details about one individual, who we previously notified, we have not been able to confirm whether the unauthorized third party actually viewed or acquired the files containing personal information or protected health information,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personal information that was potentially accessed could include names, contact information, birthdates, social security numbers and medical records, including details on diagnoses, treatments, or medical record numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt this moment, I\u2019m just shocked at something like that happening here,\u201d said Patsy Bennett, a Watson Clinic patient who has not received a breach notification letter. \u201cI just don\u2019t want anybody knowing everything, my personal history with the Watson Clinic or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson said the letters were being sent to other patients in an \u201cabundance of caution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe trick is that the bad guys are always, always, always changing and it takes a lot of vigilance to make sure that the good guys are always keeping the bad guys out,\u201d Sitta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said it is normal for companies to take several months to notify customers about a breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just nerdy cyber security work,\u201d Sitta said. \u201cThere\u2019s legal implications, there\u2019s PR implications. There\u2019s making sure that your notification letter meets the requirements that the FTC sets forth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sitta advised patients to read the breach notification letter carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A criminal could use health records or other personal information to fraudulently take out loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you ignore the letter, you could lose big time down the road where a couple of phone calls and the hassle and the headache of dealing with people in a situation that you don\u2019t really understand can sure save you a lot of money long term,\u201d Sitta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watson Clinic patients who receive the notification letter are being offered a complimentary 1-year membership to Experian\u2019s IdentityWorks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone with questions or concerns can call Watson Clinic at 888-244-3078.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat you need to do is make sure that you call those numbers, you set up that credit freeze, you take care of yourself because when your information is out there, it can be used to defraud you further,\u201d Sitta said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patients at Lakeland\u2019s Watson Clinic received letters notifying them about a breach in the network at the beginning of the year. \u201cData breaches are maybe the most common part of cybersecurity today,\u201d… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[9606],"class_list":["post-49249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-lakelands-watson-clinic-notifies-patients-about-data-breach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49251,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49249\/revisions\/49251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}