The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement with Solara Medical Supplies, LLC (Solara), a supplier and direct-to-patient distributor of continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, and other supplies to patients with diabetes, concerning potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule and Breach Notification Rule following a breach of electronic protected health information (ePHI) caused by a phishing incident. The settlement resolves an investigation concerning a phishing attack on Solara’ s information system.
In November 2019, OCR received a breach report concerning a phishing attack in which an unauthorized third party gained access to eight of Solara’s employees’ email accounts between April and June 2019, resulting in the breach of 114,007 individuals’ ePHI. In January 2020, OCR received notification of a second breach, when Solara reported that it had sent 1,531 breach notification letters to the wrong mailing addresses. OCR’s investigation determined that Solara failed to conduct a compliant risk analysis to identify the potential risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI in Solara’s systems; failed to implement security measures sufficient to reduce the risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI to a reasonable and appropriate level; and failed to provide timely breach notification to individuals, HHS, and the media.