What You Need to Know about the Community Health Center Data Breach

Community Health Center (CHC) is a non-profit founded in 1972 and headquartered in Middletown, Connecticut. It offers a broad range of services, including dentistry, primary care, urgent care, specialty medical services, and behavioral health. CHC provides healthcare services to residents in various parts of the state, including Bristol, Hartford, Waterbury, Middletown, Stamford, and New Britain. The healthcare provider employs about 1,270 individuals and generates approximately $268 million in revenue annually.

Recently, the Community Health Center announced a data security breach involving their system in which the personal information of several patients was reportedly compromised. According to various reports, data belonging to about 1 million individuals was stolen by a hacker, and the compromised data includes names, addresses, diagnoses, medical records, and test results. Others are dates of birth, health insurance information, treatment details, phone numbers, social security numbers, and email addresses. A significant number of individuals affected by the Community Health Center breach reside in Connecticut.

While many individuals were affected, Community Health Center, Inc. has said the data security incident did not disrupt its daily operations and that the hacker did not delete any file. The center also claims it has not found any evidence of data misuse since the breach occurred. In another report, information that may be compromised in the data breach for individuals who got only a COVID test or vaccine at Community Health Center, Inc. includes patient name, email, phone number, address, insurance information, gender, date of birth, ethnicity, and race.

When Was the Community Health Center Data Breach?

The Community Health Center data breach reportedly occurred on October 14, 2024, but was not discovered until January 2, 2025. The unauthorized access to the healthcare provider’s system potentially started in mid-October 2024 through a vendor with approved software. As a result of the delay between the incident date and the discovery dates, there have been various concerns from diverse groups. This prompted intensive investigations into the Community Health Center’s data security measures and responsive protocols.

Investigations done by third-party cybersecurity experts engaged by Community Health Center to determine the scope and nature of the data breach revealed that an unauthorized third party got access to the center’s system. As a result, CHC confirmed that the unauthorized third party may have stolen some data that contained patients’ sensitive personal and protected health information.

Following revelations from the investigations, the Community Health Center did a detailed review of the impacted data to know what data was compromised by the security incident and the number of affected individuals. Afterward, on January 30, 2025, Community Health Center filed a data breach notice with the Maine Attorney General’s Office and began sending affected persons notice letters regarding the incident.

How to Check If Your Data Was Breached

If you were impacted by the Community Health Center data breach, you would have received a data breach notification letter from the healthcare provider. In addition, certain sites like Have I Been Pwned offer members of the public a platform to search across various data incidents to determine if their phone numbers or email addresses have been compromised in any data security incident. Many such sites are like repositories of data breaches that allow people to check to see if their accounts have been compromised.

Alternatively, you may check if your data was breached in the Community Health Center data security incident by reviewing your financial and online accounts for unusual activity. For instance, strange charges on your bank accounts or credit cards may indicate that certain sensitive information has been compromised in the data breach. Similarly, logins on your online accounts that were not made by you (or login attempts) may be a result of leaked email addresses.

Furthermore, check your credit reports if you have reasons to believe your data may have been impacted in the Community Health Center. Any unauthorized transactions or suspicious activity on such reports may mean that some confidential information has been leaked in the breach.

What to Do If Your Data Was Breached

If your data was breached in the Community Health Center data breach, take advantage of the free identity theft protection service offered by the CHC through IDX. The services include a $1m insurance reimbursement policy, 24 months of CyberScan and credit monitoring, and assistance in recovering your identity if it gets stolen as a result of the data breach. Instructions on how to sign up for these services are outlined in the data breach notification letters sent to affected individuals. The deadline for enrollment is April 30, 2025.

Furthermore, regular monitoring of your credit reports and periodic review of account statements is advised if your data was breached in the Community Health Center data breach. To do this, you may request copies of your credit reports from each of the major credit reporting companies in the United States. A periodic review of these reports will help you uncover suspicious items, and if you have signed up for the IDX identity protection service, you can notify the company immediately.

Alternatively, you may place fraud alerts with any of the three credit bureaus in the United States if you were affected by the Community Health Center data breach. Generally, these alerts notify creditors to take certain steps, including contacting you before making any changes to your existing accounts or opening new accounts in your name.

In addition, you may want to consider placing a security freeze on your credit file if your sensitive information was compromised in the Community Health Center data breach. When this is in place, no individual will be able to open new accounts or borrow money in your name, even if they fraudulently obtain your personal identifying information. To place the freeze, you must contact the three national credit reporting bureaus in the U.S.

Are There Any Lawsuits Because of the Data Breach?

As of early February 2025, no substantive lawsuit has been filed against the Community Health Center following the recent data breach experienced by the health provider. However, a couple of lawyers and law firms are currently investigating class action lawsuits against CHC and encouraging victims to come forward and discuss legal options. The majority of the investigations by these law firms focus on the potential violations of the following:

• Connecticut Data Breach Notification Laws
• Negligence on the part of Community Health Center, as they failed to properly protect patients’ sensitive data
• Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act (HIPAA)

Can My Community Health Center Information Be Used for Identity Theft?

Yes, patients’ information exposed by the Community Health Center data breach may be used for identity theft, as some of the compromised data are personally identifying information. The breach places everyone whose data was compromised at risk of identity theft in addition to emotional distress, medical identity theft, and financial fraud.

Exposed health insurance information, medical records, and Social Security numbers may cause severe and lifelong damage to the victims of the data breach. For instance, cybercriminals may sell such compromised sensitive data on the dark web, which subjects individuals affected by the data security incident to immediate risk of identity theft. 

In other instances, if your data was affected in the Community Health Center data breach, cybercriminals may use such information to open new accounts in your name without your permission. Also, they can access your personal accounts, make unauthorized transactions on your accounts, and commit other fraudulent crimes in your name.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself Online?

Considering the spate of cyber security incidents and various data breaches in the United States, including the recent Community Health Center data breach, protecting yourself online cannot be overstated. Listed below are tips that can help you safeguard yourself and your personal information online:

• Stay abreast of data breaches by keeping an eye on news about data security incidents, especially those involving entities or companies that have your sensitive information in their network systems or databases. With sites like IDStrong, you can learn about data breaches and how to safeguard your sensitive information online.

• Where it is available, make sure to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your online accounts and across internet devices for an extra layer of security.

• Make it a point of duty to check your credit card and bank statement periodically for any signs of unauthorized transactions. Similarly, monitor your credit reports regularly for any kind of suspicious activity and take the necessary actions to report them to relevant agencies immediately. Generally, enrolling in a credit monitoring service will help you proactively monitor for credit files.

• Avoid sharing excessive personal information online, especially on your social media accounts. In addition, if you must share any sensitive information over the internet, make sure to do so over a secure and private/home internet connection. The use of public Wi-Fi while sending confidential data online is not recommended.

• Create unique, strong passwords when choosing passwords for your online or financial accounts. Passwords containing numbers, letters, and symbols are usually recommended. Avoid creating passwords that may contain personally identifying information, and desist from using the same password across multiple online accounts.

• Consider installing the latest software and operating systems on your internet devices and make sure to always update your apps. Turning on automatic updates on your devices can help you in this regard.
• Beware of fraudulent emails attempting to trick you into revealing personal or financial information. While many of these emails will appear to be from legitimate sources, make sure to verify the sources before providing any information. As a rule, avoid opening attachments or clicking on links from sources you do not trust or are not familiar with.