Pennsylvania health dept. took vital records system offline in June after security incident

Julie Spitzer -

The Pennsylvania Department of Health took its vital records system offline for six days in June after an employee discovered unauthorized cosmetic changes had been made to an internal website, according to Government Technology.

The system was taken down June 20 for emergency maintenance to address the changes and was brought back online June 26. The department was unable to process requests for copies of records or report new births or deaths on the vital records system during the downtimee, a department spokesperson told the news outlet.

No data breach occurred and no records were accessed, altered or destroyed, according to an investigation by the Pennsylvania Office of Administration.

The spokesperson declined to comment on what changes were made to the site or what remediation efforts the department made to its systems. "To disclose to the public information about our security posture … would not be responsible," the spokesperson told Government Technology.

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