Quest Diagnostics Hides Quanum Breach Notice From Search Engines

Doctors and patients who rely on Quest Diagnostics for lab results now know their data was compromised. The company filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 23 confirming that hackers accessed sensitive information on its Quanum platform.

Quanum is a digital system that healthcare providers use to order tests and process billing. Quest stated that it learned of the attack on Wednesday, October 21. The unauthorized access included specific patient records, though the company has not yet released the total volume of data taken.

A security notice on the Quest website says that protected health information was stolen. This includes personal details and medical records. The company is currently determining exactly which data types were accessed. Notably, the website page containing this notice uses technical code to hide it from search engine results. This makes the alert difficult for the average user to find without a direct link.

Quest has not disclosed when the breach began or how many clinics or patients are affected. The company also has not said if a hacking group contacted them for a ransom payment. Amanda Rivera, a spokesperson for Quest, directed reporters to the security notice when asked for more details.

The potential scale of the leak is large because about 500,000 clinicians use the platform across North America. Quest materials describe one health system using Quanum that manages over 6 million patients. That single system holds hundreds of millions of medical documents.

This incident follows several other major cyberattacks in the healthcare sector this year. In March, hackers wiped devices at medical technology firm Stryker. In August, a hack at Boston Scientific forced its network offline for weeks. Other breaches this year affected CareCloud, Craneware, and McKesson.

This is the second major data breach for Quest in ten years. In 2019, the company lost 11.9 million patient records due to an attack on a third-party billing partner. Quest said it has notified law enforcement and is investigating the current incident.