CFPC offers free credit monitoring to doctors whose financial info may have been compromised in data hack

After receiving criticism about how it handled a cybersecurity incident last fall, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) said in statement that members whose financial information may have been compromised have been notified and offered complimentary credit monitoring services.“If individuals received a notification but it did not offer free credit monitoring, it means that their financial information was not exposed,” said the CFPC statement received by the Medical Post on April 12, 2024. The CFPC also clarified that no credit card information was exposed during the breach, as such data is not stored within its systems.Read: Family doctors hit with spam email (2020)The note to members on April 4, 2024 informed them that hackers had copied data from the CFPC’s network on Oct. 25, 2023 that included “some or all of the following types of your personal information: name, address, date of birth, email address, telephone number, medical license number, and payment receipts for membership dues.”An anonymous doctor wrote about what happened in the Medical Post’s Doctor Daily newsletter and physicians had withering things to say about the CFPC in online comments. “Like other doctors, I felt betrayed by not only the lack of CFPC security that resulted in the breech, but their neglect in informing us of the breech in a timely fashion,” wrote Dr. Lynn Larabie.“The dates are incredibly interesting. Oct 25 is right when we were all upset nationally about the 3-year residency and grassroots docs were deciding to outvote it as a group at the AGM,” wrote Dr. Elizabeth Zubek. “I have emails on Oct 25 showing this was right at the height of the conflict. I wonder if their attention was so focused on trying to push through the residency plans that this went on the back burner, or that they had so many people angry with them already that they didn’t want to add fuel to the fire admitting a data breach at the exact time physicians were calling for an overhaul of their leadership?”Some writers suggested considering a class-action lawsuit against CFPC and several doctors demanded compensation, such as free credit monitoring or Equifax services (which the CFPC’s statement of April 12 says is being offered to members whose financial information was exposed).Read: ‘Foreseeable’ cyberattack on N.L. health network hit majority of province: reportRegarding the five-month delay in notifying doctors, the CFPC statement said: “After we found out about this incident, we immediately took steps to secure our network and implemented additional security measures to help safeguard against further unauthorized activity. We then conducted an analysis of what happened and what may have been exposed in the systems, to understand the extent and scope of the incident. The analysis was significant and took several months to complete, and we notified you as soon as we could after completing our review of the affected data.”The Medical Post also asked if all members were affected and if not all, how many. A CFPC media relations person said in an email: “We are not able to provide you with a total number but we can tell you that all potentially affected individuals have been notified directly.”

CFPC offers free credit monitoring to doctors whose financial info may have been compromised in data hack

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