Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing Discloses Massive Data Breach

In recent months, millions of Americans have been affected by data breach incidents involving healthcare organizations. The Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing (HCPF) revealed that personal and health information of around 4.1 million individuals was compromised in a MOVEit-related data breach attack.

The government department is responsible for managing the Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid program), Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+), and other health programs for citizens with disabilities, the elderly, and low-income families.

In the notice, HCPF said that the incident did not directly impact its systems, rather the data compromise happened because of IBM, which is one its vendors. IBM utilizes the MOVEit application to transfer certain HCPF files. The breach is said to have occurred on or about May 28.

On being notified by IBM, the state agency launched an immediate investigation to confirm whether any of its systems had been impacted, and to determine if any personal or/and health data of the citizens had been accessed by the threat actors.

‘’While HCPF confirmed that no HCPF systems or databases were impacted, on June 13, 2023, the investigation identified that certain HCPF files on the MOVEit application [..] were accessed [..]. These files contained certain Health First Colorado and CHP+ members’ information,’’ the notice revealed.

The extracted information included personal information like few individuals’ full name, date of birth, home address, Social Security Number, demographic or income information, health insurance details and diagnostic, medication, treatment information.

According to the department, 4,091,794 individuals have been impacted by this incident. HCPF has per the government guidelines has informed the impacted people and the concerned regulatory division, i.e., Maine Attorney General’s office. It is also providing two years of credit monitoring services through Experian.

Earlier this month, the Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) had disclosed a similar MOVEit unrelated data breach incident that had compromised student and faculty information.