Data security group HITrust reports breach

The Health Information Trust Alliance, a Frisco, Texas-based organization that promotes data security, has been hacked.

In an announcement on its website, HITrust said it had “a non-critical, standalone public web server compromised by an SQL injection that resulted in some test data being leaked.” The hack exposed 111 records that included “some real names, companies, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses” and six encrypted passwords. The data were from rosters of planning meetings in 2008, according to the statement said. No personal health or other sensitive information was breached, the statement said.

“We had not deemed this particular web server and test data to require higher assurances as we do with many of our other systems,” according to the statement. “We have updated our policies both to non-critical, non-sensitive web servers and our test environments and will secure our test environments and public general information websites to a higher assurance level.”

HITrust announced this month that five health insurance plans and a pharmacy chain will require their business associates to participate in an independent security-assessment program sponsored by HITrust.

Follow Joseph Conn on Twitter: @MHJConn