Systems hack enables data theft, access for 8.9M MCNA Dental patients

The health information tied to 8.9 million patients enrolled in Florida Healthy Kids Corporation (FHKC) and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s Medicaid insurance programs was stolen after a systems hack on MCNA, their dental benefits and services provider.

MCNA Dental works with state Medicaid agencies, Children’s Health Insurance Programs, private entities, and other insurance plans. The notice only refers to FHKC and Florida’s HCA.

With nearly 9 million impacted, the incident is now the largest healthcare data breach reported by a single entity so far this year, followed by Pharmerica (5.2 million patients), Regal Medical Group (3.3 million), Cerebral (3.18 million), and NationsBenefits (3.04 million).

Discovered on March 6, a threat actor gained access to the MCNA system to both access and exfiltrate copies of data stored in the network for several weeks between Feb. 26 and March 7. The investigation also found certain systems were “infected with malicious code.”

The stolen data varied by individual included full names, contact details, dates of birth, email addresses, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers or other government-issued ID numbers, health insurance plan data, conditions, diagnoses, treatments, and insurance claims. The data was tied to children and their guardians.

Upon discovery, MCNA contacted law enforcement and has been cooperating with their investigation. The benefits manager has since bolstered its systems security.

For FHKC, this is the second vendor-related breach affecting its patients in the last two years. Reported in early 2021, its vendor, Jelly Beans Communications Design, failed to patch multiple website vulnerabilities and enabled a threat actor to access and tamper with patient data for more than seven years. The incident was one of the largest healthcare data breaches in 2021.

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