Paging Dr. Hacker

Hospitals are supposed to rectify illnesses; give you a sense of comfort, safety, and hope. With hospitals recording their patients' information digitally, however, that sense of safety has been compromised. At Vassar Hospital, many patients were betrayed by their trusted hospital's database.

An unknown hacker infiltrated all of the records in the hospital's computer, and was able to retrieve the identities of all registered patients. This potentially led to numerous counts of identity and credit card fraud, leaving many people at risk of mass amounts of unwarranted debt.

The hospital sent out a letter- USPS, not email- warning all current and former patients of the hack and recommending a notification to the credit card companies. Shortly after, any uses of credit by these people were under scrutiny and most transactions took anywhere from half an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. A lack of security at Vassar Hospital led to financial inconvenience for so many.

This instance is certainly scary, to say the least. The fact that a safe haven like a hospital is at risk of occurrences such as this makes me skeptical of the most basic online shopping sites. What could their security be like if a hospital is open to hackers. This is a problem that needs to be rectified sooner than later, or no one in this world can possibly feel like their identity is locked down tight.