Laboratory operator Quest Diagnostics reported a cyber breach in which an unauthorized party gained access to certain patient records.
The incident is under federal law enforcement and cybersecurity investigation.
The diagnostics testing operator said Thursday it learned of unauthorized access to its Quanum Lab Services Manager system, the platform used by some healthcare clients to place test orders, receive and look up results.
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In its regulatory filing, it said the hack was discovered Wednesday and notified federal law enforcement and hired outside cybersecurity experts.
Quest said it believes “certain patient records” were accessed in the breach. The full scope of how many patients and which particular records have been affected remains publicly unknown.
It said the incident was unrelated to a PHP programming-language vulnerability disclosed the same week.
Quest paused access to Quanum Lab Services Manager and, out of “an abundance of caution,” to several other tools for healthcare professionals where data was not affected.
The diagnostics testing operator has been the target of online breaches before.
An unauthorized party accessed Quest’s MyQuest by Care360 app in 2016, obtaining the information of about 34,000 people.
Exposed information included names, dates of birth, lab results and, in some cases, phone numbers.
Quest said the information didn’t include Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, or insurance or other financial data.
In 2019, Quest notified 11.9 million patients of a breach at billing collection vendor American Medical Collection Agency. The breach exposed financial information and some medical and personal data.
The healthcare and medical technology sector has faced a mounting wave of cyberattacks and unauthorized system intrusions, increasingly driven by vulnerabilities in third-party vendors and connected supply chains.
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