THE CRUNCH
Amplifon Hearing Health Care has disclosed a data breach in which hackers accessed the internal systems of Amplifon Americas, the Minneapolis-based arm of Italy's Amplifon, and copied files between January 18 and February 8. The stolen data includes names, contact details, driver's licence and other government-issued ID numbers, dates of birth, hearing and medical details, dates when services were provided, health insurance information and, in some cases, Social Security numbers and financial details.
The company says it discovered suspicious activity on February 11, after the hackers' access window had ended, contained the incident immediately and launched an investigation. The review of the stolen data took eight months to establish that personal information was potentially affected. Amplifon states it has seen no sign that the exposed data has been misused fraudulently.
The scale of the breach is disputed. Amplifon's filing with the Texas Attorney General's Office listed 85,804 people affected, plus 1,027 in Vermont, and it has also filed notices in California. The widely circulated figure of 1,332,826 people affected nationwide comes from class action law firms, and Amplifon has not confirmed it. No hacking group has claimed responsibility.
Amplifon, which says its network of thousands of clinics serves more than 80 million members, has been contacted for further comment.