Quest Diagnostics Reveals Cyberattack Exposed Patient Records
The medical lab giant confirmed unauthorized access to its Quanum platform, compromising sensitive health information.
By Chinedu Okafor ·
A significant cybersecurity incident has struck Quest Diagnostics, the medical laboratory testing giant, which confirmed unauthorized access to patient records stored within its systems. The company disclosed the breach in a legally mandated filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, acknowledging that an attack targeted one of its core platforms.
According to the filing, the cyberattack, discovered on Wednesday, targeted Quanum, a platform utilized by physicians and hospitals to request lab tests and process billing. The system stores extensive medical records, diagnostic data, and associated billing information. Quest stated that the intrusion involved the accessing of “certain patient records,” adding that law enforcement has been notified and an investigation is underway.
The incident arrives amidst a wave of cyber activity targeting the healthcare sector. Over the past year, multiple organizations in the industry have suffered breaches that resulted in the theft of millions of electronic health records and caused significant operational disruptions. Financially motivated cybercriminals continue to target health technology companies with the intent of stealing sensitive data and threatening to publish it absent payment.
Recent months have seen similar attacks disrupt major players in the field. Stryker experienced a mass-wiping of employee devices in March, while Boston Scientific was forced to take its network offline for weeks in August, causing global disruption. Other companies, including CareCloud, Craneware, and McKesson, have also suffered hacks that exposed patient data.
Quest has not yet specified the number of patients or healthcare customers affected by the breach on Quanum. The platform is utilized by approximately 500,000 clinicians across thousands of locations in North America. While the total volume of records held by Quanum remains unclear, the company has not disclosed when the breach began or whether any hacking group has contacted them with extortion demands.
In a security notice, Quest confirmed that some patients’ protected health information was taken, including “personal information and patient records.” The company continues to investigate the specific types of data involved. This event marks the second known major data breach for Quest in a decade, following an incident in 2019 where 11.9 million patient records were lost via a third-party billing company.
Source: TechCrunch
