The largest hospital system in western Massachusetts revealed Friday that a data breach may have exposed personal information of about 13,000 patients.
Baystate Health said a so-called “phishing” attack in August allowed hackers to gain access to the email accounts of five employees. Some of the emails in these accounts contained information about patients possibly including names, diagnosis, and treatment.
Baystate spokesman Brendan Monahan said it is not known what, if anything, the hacker did with the emails.
"Presumably this individual, from what the experts we consulted tell us, was looking for financial information and these patient documents did not have any of that," said Monahan.
Letters are being mailed to the affected patients and Baystate has set up an 800-number for them to call with questions.
The FBI has been alerted.
