Malware
Urgent Alert: 1.2 Million Individuals Impacted by Mom’s Meals Devastating Data Breach
Mom’s Meals, a meal delivery service, has recently suffered a data breach affecting a staggering 12 million individuals. Personal information, including names, addresses, and contact details, may have been compromised. This breach serves as a reminder of the urgent need for companies to prioritize and enhance their cybersecurity measures. Safeguarding customer data should always be a top priority.
Mom’s Meals Warns of Data Breach
Mom’s Meals, a medical meal delivery service operating in the U.S., is alerting customers and employees about a recent data breach. The breach resulted in the theft of personal information belonging to 1.2 million individuals as a result of a ransomware attack.
Mom’s Meals serves self-paying customers as well as those eligible for government assistance through programs such as Medicaid and the Older Americans Act.
The company first noticed suspicious activity on its networks on February 22nd, 2023. It was discovered that files on the systems had been encrypted by ransomware.
“Upon identifying suspicious account behavior on February 22, 2023, we launched an investigation with the help of third-party specialists,” reads the notice posted on our website.
Further investigation indicated that the cyberattack occurred between January 16, 2023, and February 22, 2023, resulting in the encryption of certain files within our network.
Early signs of network problems became apparent in early March 2023 when an anonymous Mom’s Meals employee reported to an Iowa news outlet that they had missed work and pay for a week due to “an internet issue”.
Our investigation uncovered that the breach took place on January 16th, 2023, and revealed the presence of tools commonly used for data theft on our network.
A detailed investigation concluded on July 10th, 2023, confirming that the hackers gained access to various types of sensitive data, including:
- Date of birth
- Driver’s license
- State identification number
- Financial account information
- Payment card information
- Medical record number
- Medicare and Medicaid identification
- Health information
- Treatment information
- Diagnosis code
- Meal category and cost
- Health insurance information
- Patient ID number
- Social Security Numbers (for more than 1% of the affected individuals)
This data breach impacts individuals who have received Mom’s Meals packages, as well as current and former employees and independent contractors.
According to the PurFoods data breach filing at the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the incident has affected a total of 1,237,681 individuals.
As a response, Mom’s Meals will provide affected individuals with 12 months of free credit monitoring and identity protection services through Kroll.
The exposed data is highly sensitive, and cybercriminals can potentially exploit it for elaborate scams, phishing, and social engineering attacks.
Therefore, it is crucial for Mom’s Meals customers to remain extremely vigilant when it comes to all incoming communications, whether through email, SMS text messages, or phone calls.