GitHub Leaks: Lessons Learned

GovInfoSecurity HealthInfoSec) • April 30, 2021     The Wyoming health department is the latest entity to experience a PHI leak on GitHub. Recent incidents involving inadvertent exposure of patient data on GitHub, a software development and version control platform designed for collaboration, point to the need to ensure that data loss prevention tools are implemented, available security controls are leveraged and employees are made aware of the risks involved in using internet-facing platforms. In the most recent incident, COVID-19 test results and other sensitive data of 164,000 individuals collected by the Wyoming Department of Health were exposed on GitHub. In another incident earlier this month, the PHI of 136,000 individuals was accidentally exposed on GitHub by an employee of revenue cycle management vendor Med-Data Inc.