Natural Health Services suffered a data breach compromising medical cannabis users’ personal information

• Natural Health Services Ltd manages Canada’s largest referral network of medical cannabis users.
• The exposed information includes patients’ personal information, medical diagnoses, allergies, referrals, and encounter notes.

What is the issue - Natural Health Services Ltd which manages Canada’s largest referral network of medical cannabis users, suffered a data breach.

What happened - Attackers gained unauthorized access to NHS’s electronic medical records (EMR) system that contains personal health information records between December 4, 2018, and January 7, 2019.

What information was exposed?

• The exposed information includes patients’ personal information, medical diagnoses, allergies, referrals, and encounter notes.
• However, no patients prescriptions, credit card information, or social security numbers were involved in the breach.

What was the immediate action taken?

• Natural Health Services has notified its clients, the medical cannabis referral agencies about the incident.
• The company has notified the Police department and has started its own private investigation.
• The company is also working with the law enforcement authorities and the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta to investigate the incident.
• NHS has requested the potentially affected clients and the patients to monitor their financial statements for suspicious activity and report immediately.

“NHS is working with law enforcement and the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta to investigate this matter. NHS is undertaking all necessary steps to work with the respective provincial privacy commissioners to ensure that this does not happen again.” NHS said in a statement, Calgary Herald reported.