Late last week, Partners HealthCare announced that it notified approximately 3,300 patients of a security breach involving a hacking incident where intruders accessed medical and personal information of patients.

Partners acknowledged that the hackers were able to infiltrate the security of its system through phishing e–mails that employees opened, exposing their e-mail accounts to unauthorized intruders.

The information included in the exposed data included patients’ Social Security numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and medical and health insurance information.

It is well-known that hackers are and will continue to target health care organizations and this is a strong reminder to health care entities to implement a strong employee training program to educate employees about e-mail phishing and other ploys commonly used by cyber criminals.