Insight Hospital patients advised to take precautions after last summer's data breach
A community leader is sounding the alarm after a Bronzeville hospital notified patients about a data breach that happened nearly nine months ago.
Now, experts who say thousands could be impacted are advising what patients should do immediately.
"I'm looking at my watch, and I'm like 'Whoa, we're in April,'" said Alexander Perez.
When Perez, a 2nd District police councilor, found out that Insight Hospital and Medical Care Center fell victim to a data breach between August and September last year, he was concerned for his constituents.
He said some of them are elderly, on a fixed income, or living in the senior living facility next to the hospital, and their information could have been compromised months ago without them knowing it.
"Any possibility of, you know, any proactive action to try and really kind of mitigate harm is kind of lost," he said. "Especially something, you know, a hospital system that is meant to save lives and is tasked with preventative care."
Perez said Insight recently sent out a statement to patients. The letter said in part, "We are conducting an extensive review of these systems to identify the specific information accessed during the window of network access. Upon completion of this review, we will provide notice to all individuals whose information could have been involved."
Anyone who was a patient at Insight, there are a few things the hospital is already advising people to do, including get a copy of their credit report, place a fraud alert on it, and freeze their credit file.
They are also asking patients to review their account statements and contact law enforcement if something looks suspicious.
"If something is going to happen, that window when they used that compromised information is within a two-year time frame," said cybersecurity expert Scott Schober.
Insight said the unauthorized individuals may have accessed social security numbers, financial account details, and health insurance information.
"Even though it's a small hospital, it could be a huge problem, because oftentimes smaller hospitals don't have the money to spend to protect information," Schober said.
Schober added that information can be taken and used for fake insurance claims, so it's important to get identity theft monitoring.
CBS News Chicago reached out to Insight Hospital and Medical Center about the data breach. They said only a limited amount of patient information was compromised. It's unclear how many were impacted or when they were notified.