More than 18,000 MultiCare customers potentially impacted by cyber attack
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TACOMA, Wash. - MultiCare announced on Thursday that it was involved in a multi-company cyber-attack, and more than 18,000 people may have had their personal information compromised.
According to their press release, 18,615 people who are in MultiCare’s Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced program have potentially been involved in the data breach. Officials say personal information, such as a person’s full name, diagnosis or conditions, dates of service and provider names may have been compromised.
MultiCare says that the data breach originated with Avamere Health Services LLC, a company that provides contracted services to Physicians of Southwest Washington (PSW), a business associate of MultiCare.
In early 2022, Avamere discovered unauthorized access to its network’s systems. Officials say the company immediately stopped this access, called the police and began an investigation. Investigators found that some files containing personal health information had been removed from their systems. After the investigation ended, Avamere notified both PSW and Multicare.
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Avamere is directly notifying all impacted individuals by mail, and will provide credit monitoring for a year.
Anyone with questions or needs assistance with this incident can call their toll-free phone line at 833-909-4422. Their response line will be available Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
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