My health information has been stolen. Now what?

As health data continues to be a prized target for hackers, here’s how to minimise the fallout from a breach impacting your own health records.

Medical data is among the most sensitive information we share with organisations. That’s why it’s given “special category” status by the GDPR – meaning additional protections are required. But nothing is 100% breach-proof. That means it’s more important than ever that you understand what to do in the event your data is compromised – to minimise the fallout.

Among the medical data potentially at risk is your:

• Medical insurance policy numbers or similar
• Personally identifiable information (PII), home and email address, and birth date
• Passwords to key medical, insurance and financial accounts
• Medical history, including treatments and prescriptions
• Billing and payment information, including credit and debit card and bank account details

This information could be used by threat actors to run up bills on your credit card, open new lines of credit, access and drain your bank account, or impersonate you to obtain expensive medical services and prescription medication.

Check out ESET Ireland’s latest blog for 8 steps to take following a data breach.

Guest post by ESET Ireland. You can follow ESET Ireland on X (ex-Twitter), Facebook or LinkedIn for more cybersecurity tips.