Health department now notifying Floridians whose information was stolen, leaked

The Florida Department of Health is sending notices out to people whose personal and health information was stolen by hackers and released on the dark web last month.

Floridians are being notified by mail if they were a victim of the cyberattack, and the state is offering them free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, the department wrote in a public notice Wednesday.

In June, the international hacker group RansomHub stole at least 20,000 department files that included some Floridians’ most sensitive information: HIV test results, signed medical release forms, detailed insurance data, workers’ compensation records and COVID-19 diagnoses.

The group demanded payment from the state to recover the files, but the state has a policy against paying ransoms. In July, the group posted the files on the dark web. The department did not say how many people were victims.

The incident, one of the worst cyberattacks in the state’s history, also caused the state’s online system for issuing birth and death certificates to go offline for weeks.

The attack occurred June 26 and was discovered the same day, the department said.

Some of the sensitive information released included patient names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, bank and credit card information, driver’s license and military identification numbers, patients’ prescriptions, insurance claim information and passwords, the department said.

The Times/Herald viewed some of the files posted on the dark web and found that many were detailed test results labeled as coming from the Department of Health’s Bureau of Public Health Laboratories. The department has labs in Jacksonville, Tampa and Miami that conduct tests for health departments and hospitals, including for infectious diseases such as HIV, hepatitis and COVID-19.

Most records viewed by the Times/Herald involved patients and hospitals in Broward County. Most were dated 2023 and 2024.

The Department of Health oversees the county’s health departments and reports to Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who was chosen by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

2024 Tampa Bay Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.