Virus creates Canadian patient data breach

Officials are saying that a virus is to blame for compromising thousands of patient medical records at Alberta Health Services. The virus impacted AHS’ network and Netcare, Alberta’s electronic health record, from May 15-29 before it was detected and removed, said officials. The virus is said to be a new variant of a Trojan horse program called Coreflood, which is designed to steal data from an infected computer and send it to a server controlled by a hacker. Officials are sending letters to the 11,582 patients whose information may have been exposed and have notified all affected employees.