In question, the company ResUrgences which would have left a file containing all this data accessible on its Internet site.
In hospitals, computers are omnipresent, from the management of patient entry to prescribed examinations. Thousands of information that is not so well guarded since hospitals are once again at the center of a computer data breach scandal.
According to information revealed Thursday, October 31 by Zataz, a website specializing in computer security, “hundreds of sensitive information concerning French hospitals” (1) was accessible on the Internet. A simple Google search provided access to an Excel document “titled InfosEtContacts.xls” which made available to any Internet user “remote access (with login and password) to the tool dedicated to emergencies; taking control of servers (ip, vnc, access, etc.), opening a session (with ip and connection identifiers). In some cases, access to databases with ip, login and password ”. For those who are not computer-savvy, this information was the key to gaining access, among other things, to the computer files of patients received by the emergency room. A real “hospitalgate”, therefore.
According to the elements put forward by the site Data Security Breach which seems to be at the origin of the discovery, the flaw, corrected at the beginning of the week, had lasted since at least mid-October.
One question remains: how did this sensitive data end up freely accessible on the Internet? The flaw would come from a service provider, the company ResUrgences, and its software for managing emergency patient files. The Directorate General of the Offer of Care indicates that the incident did not give rise to any intrusion into hospital information systems, “the risk having been borne by the immediate reactions of the supplier removing access to the data. and the Certa responsible for assisting “.
This is not the first time that sensitive data has found its way to Google. In June 2012, 375 patient files from the Champagne clinic were posted on the Internet.
(1) Among the hospitals affected by this major data breach, Zataz cites “Saône, Brive, Besançon, Belfort, Beauvais, Amiens, R / Yon, La Rochelle, Gueret, Gentilly, St Ame, Blanc Mesnil, Forbach, Epinal , Dole, Senlis, Rennes, Provins, Guadeloupe, Neuilly, Nancy, Lille, Montpellier, Metz or Lunéville. “
.
