Carolinas Medical Center-Randolph Data Breach (2012)

The private information of some 5,600 patients of Carolinas Medical Center-Randolph might have been accessed by a computer hacker, according to hospital officials. Carolinas HealthCare System notified those patients plus, as a precautionary measure, another 700 additional patients of the breach, a hospital news release said Friday. The hacker accessed the information by obtaining incoming and outgoing emails from a provider's account, according to the release. Officials discovered the security breach Oct. 8, after a security software upgrade. Five affected emails contained Social Security numbers, and "a number" of the emails included medical and other patient information, the release said. That information included patient names, medical record and account numbers, dates of birth and treatment information.