Nearly a dozen pharmaceutical companies, including several major players, have lost sensitive customer data due to a supply chain cyberattack from pharmaceutical giant Cencora.
In late February 2024, wholesale drug company Cencora (formerly known as AmerisourceBergen) filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), reporting a data breach incident, without going into too much detail. .
Now, beepcomputer has found 11 pharmaceutical companies, all of which sent nearly identical breach notification letters to the California Attorney General's office, and all of which alleged a data breach as a result of the Cencora incident.
Identity theft and phishing
The affected companies are Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, Bayer Corporation, AbbVie, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, Incyte Corporation, Sumitomo Pharma America, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline Group, Endo Pharmaceuticals and Dendreon Pharmaceuticals.
Companies lost customers' full names, mailing addresses, health diagnoses, medications and prescriptions.
At this time, there does not appear to be any evidence of data misuse; However, as there is a genuine risk of identity theft, phishing and other forms of attacks, exposed individuals will be offered two years of free credit and identity protection. Monitoring through Experian.
Cencora's investigation, which apparently concluded in mid-April 2024, found that the incident was a data theft, rather than a ransomware attack, so the company does not expect the attack to have a significant effect on its operations. or your financial status. . However, there is always the possibility of a class action lawsuit or the EU investigating whether there was a breach of the GDPR.
Cencora is a pharmaceutical giant with more than 46,000 employees and approximately $262.2 billion in revenue in 2023 alone. It is headquartered in Pennsylvania and operates in about 50 countries around the world. While the 11 victims are pharmaceutical giants, Novartis can be pointed to as one of the world's largest companies in the industry, with major operations in oncology, neuroscience and immunology.
