Charleston Fire Department reports email-related breach

The West Virginia fire department recently notified the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of a data breach. 

What happened

Charleston Fire Department provided a notice to the HHS’ Office of Civil Rights stating that the department had experienced an email-related data breach.

According to a notice posted on their website, spam emails were being unknowingly sent by an EMS employee’s email account. The department became aware of the issue on February 21st, 2025, and immediately took steps to secure their system. 

Once the department began investigating the incident, with help from outside cybersecurity experts, they determined that the employee’s email account “had been subjected to unauthorized access beginning on February 18th, 2025.” 

Charleston Fire reported that the breach impacted 2,583 individuals. 

Going deeper

The notice stated that the affected mailbox mostly had information pertaining to ambulance trips and EMS billing. For individuals who have been treated by the department, the following information may have been accessed: names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, other demographic identifiers, clinical information like diagnosis/conditions, medications, dates of services, and/or insurance information. Additionally, some individuals may have had their dates of service, insurance carriers, and the amount billed for EMS treatment accessed.

Charleston Fire began mailing impacted individuals on April 22nd. They are offering free credit monitoring to anyone who has received treatment from Charleston EMS, regardless of if the individual received a letter. 

The bottom line

This breach resulted in data being accessed and may also have resulted in others being victimized by clicking links or attachments sent from the infiltrated email. Often, malicious actors will attempt to access other email accounts to continue spreading and accessing data. 

Data breaches that occur from email are common, but easy to prevent. While training is imperative–many individuals struggle to spot suspicious emails, it’s equally important to have security software that prevets spam emails from ever entering a worker’s email. Although we don’t know the exact cause of this breach, it likely took place when the employee opened an email with a virus that attached itself to their email. By ensuring that employees never receive malicious emails, many data breaches, like this one, could be prevented. The best software, like Paubox, automates this process, functioning seamlessly in the background. 

FAQs

How do email breaches happen?

Email breaches often take place when an individual unknowing provides their email information to a malicious site or clinks on a suspicious link or attachment sent to their email. 

What are the consequences of spam emails? 

Spam emails are used to spread viruses, allowing malicious actors to access more data from unsuspecting individuals.