Third-Party Security Failures Can Hurt

Organization: The American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA)

When: Breach was disclosed in May 2019

Breach Details: In June, medical debt collection company AMCA notified two of its largest customers - Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp - about an unauthorized user accessing an AMCA system containing sensitive data on millions of their patients. Data, including Social Security numbers, bank account and credit information, and medical information belonging to some 11.9 million Quest patients and 7.7 million LabCorp patients were compromised in the breach. Since then several other healthcare entities that used AMCA for debt-collection purposes have disclosed being impacted in the same breach. In total, the incident impacted 21 healthcare organizations and at least 24.4 million individuals. AMCA filed for bankruptcy protection after some its customers sued the company.

Lessons Learned: For Quest, LabCorp, and the other victims, the AMCA incident was a classic example of third-party risk. It was a reminder of the need for organizations to ensure that business partners and other third parties with whom they interact, follow security best practices.

"The challenge for enterprises is managing information about the security posture of their third parties," said Matan Or-El, CEO of Panorays. "Issues include suppliers who do not fix security issues in time, partners who receive data and do not protect it as they should, and partners and third parties who receive access to an enterprise's network but fail to protect that access in an appropriate way."

Image source: AMCA