With many U.S. health systems using Epic’s portal to communicate with patients, scammers are seeing an opening. Cybersecurity experts warn that one group is especially vulnerable.
The one place patients are trained to trust—their doctor’s portal—just became scammers’ newest disguise.
A phishing scam disguised as MyChart, Epic’s patient portal, is prompting a number of U.S. health systems to warn patients not to fall for emails designed to trick them into handing over personal information.
Texas Health reported that the scam appears
Texas Health reported that the scam appears to specifically target elderly patients, dangling a free “MyChart Medicare Kit,” “Senior Health Package,” or similar gift as bait. The messages also typically direct recipients to click a link to claim the offer, leading to a page designed to harvest personal information.
This comes after Trevor Berceau, Epic’s director of research and development, said last month that scammers had increasingly been exploiting the MyChart brand to target patients, sending fraudulent messages through email, text, and phone calls.
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“The increase in attempts is due to scammers taking advantage of the popularity of the MyChart brand rather than any security concern, so you can continue to use MyChart as normal,” Berceau wrote.
When contacted for a comment, Epic referred Inc
When contacted for a comment, Epic referred Inc. to their help page, which features more information on scams like this and how users can protect themselves.
Experts note that by targeting older adults, scammers are exploiting a demographic that’s often more inclined to trust digital systems at face value. “Scams impersonating a trusted brand like Epic provide an obvious way in to compromising patients of all ages, but especially older patients, who often extend more trust to these systems than those of us who grew up with them ever will,” Bryson Byrd, cybersecurity advisor at Huntress told Inc.
Source: www.inc.com
