Picture Archiving and Communication Systems

Summary

Researchers at Greenbone Networks discovered a data breach of Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) servers used globally by healthcare providers to store images of medical scans. It was found that 1.19 million data records from patients in several countries, including 786 million patients in the US, were freely available on the internet and may have included names, reasons for examination, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and ID cards. Although most of the PACS servers have been taken offline and patient data is no longer accessible via the internet, there is an ongoing issue of PACS exposing patient data and failing to comply with proper controls, such as HIPAA.