Quest Diagnostics breach: What to do if you may have been affected
Visit IdentityTheft.gov/databreach to learn what you can do to protect your identity.
Federal Trade Commission
A data breach of one of Quest Diagnostic's billing vendors has left as many as 11.9 million people worried, wondering if their personal and medical information has been compromised.
On Monday, Quest Diagnostics said that AMCA, a billing collections vendor, informed the company that there had been unauthorized access on AMCA's web payment page and that information from Quest Diagnostics and Optum360 customers may have been compromised.
The information stored on AMCA's affected system includes credit card numbers, bank account information, medical information and personal information, including Social Security numbers.
News of the breach has customers from across the country concerned .
"This is the 2nd time in two years that my information has been affected and it is becoming increasingly frustrating that more isn't being done to protect my personal information and raises another question as to if they really need this information in the first place?" said Will Becker, in an email.
In an email, Edwin Padilla, from Orlando, Florida, asked a reporter if there was a way to find out if he had been affected by the breach. Several other emails asked the reporter the same question.
So what can concerned customers do? Here are a few answers.
Who is affected?
Since Monday, neither Quest nor AMCA has put out a list of those affected or distributed instructions on how to find out if you've been affected.
As the story unfolds, start here.
Don't miss your chance for unlimited digital access to exclusive content.
99¢ per month. Save 90%.
However, AMC said that they are planning to send letters to those affected.
"AMCA is sending out letters to affected customers who need to know certain information about their data."
Quest did narrow down the field of those potentially affected, clarifying that AMCA is a vendor used by Optum360, which in turn provides billing services to Quest.
As a collection agency, the individuals who might be impacted would be those who had a potentially "delinquent" account, said Wendy Bost, a spokeswoman for Quest.
"We're waiting for more information, but to the best of our knowledge, it would be individuals who were late in their payment and are therefore delinquent," she said.
What is Quest doing?
Quest insists that since the security breach was at one of AMCA's systems, they have little information about the breach.
"Again, we would not be in a position to clarify information on specific individuals as we await more details from AMCA," said Bost.
Quest released a statement on their website summarizing the incident and does provide a general service number, 866-MYQUEST. But if customers call, Quest would not be able to provide information on specific individual's accounts, said Bost.
Another data breach: LabCorp data breach exposes information of 7.7 million consumers
They have my number? 5 ways to avoid being put on robocall lists
What is AMCA doing?
Emails to an AMCA spokesperson requesting information on what to do if you have an account with AMCA were not immediately returned.
However, AMCA announced that it would be providing 24 months of credit monitoring to anyone who had a social security number or credit card account compromised, even if the relevant state does not require it.
What can you do?
Those people impacted should consider adding a fraud alert to the credit reporting agencies and a credit freeze, said Darren Hayes, Assistant Professor at Pace University's Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems.
Email: torrejon@northjersey.com
No comments:
Post a Comment