Ascension Seton: Social security numbers, credit cards impacted by security breach

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Social security numbers, credit card information and more were impacted by a March data breach involving Ascension Seton's legacy websites, according to a news release from Ascension Texas.

On March 2, the agency was alerted to a security event involving Ascension Seton's legacy websites, Seton.net and DellChildrens.net, which is managed by the third-party vendor Vertex, the release said.

Ascension said it worked closely with Vertex to investigate, as well as understand what information was affected, the release said. Vertex notified law enforcement, the release said.

The agency said demographic information, such as name, address, email address, phone number, insurance information, social security number (or tax identification number), as well as other clinical information would have been affected if the information was provided to the agency by people using the legacy websites, Seton.net and DellChildrens.net.

However, Ascension said it does not believe any information was removed from the affected systems or that it was misused or shared. Furthermore, Ascension networks and medical records systems were not affected by the incident, the release said.

"We take the protection and safeguarding of information seriously and have taken steps to ensure this kind of incident does not happen again. We reviewed our processes for vendor-hosted websites and shut down the affected sites, creating new ones hosted by Ascension, as well as reviewed the type of information collected on these sites," the release said in part.

Ascension notified affected individuals and provided complimentary credit and identity theft protection services to those who had social security numbers, credit card information and/or insurance numbers impacted by the incident, the release said.

Ascension also reported the incident to the Office for Civil Rights in accordance with its obligations under the HIPAA Rules and other regulatory agencies as required, the release said.

If anyone has any other questions, they can contact the assistance line, toll-free at (866) 547-1504, Monday-Friday between 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. CST.