Rutland hospital notifying 74K hit by data breach

Thousands of people were notified this week about a data breach at the Rutland Regional Medical Center that put their private information at risk.

Now, some say the hospital should have done more to prevent it and notified patients sooner.

The hospital says they were notified about the breach in December after an employee noticed a large number of spam emails being sent from the hospital's account. Now, files containing personal information of more 72,000 people could be in jeopardy.

Information like names, medical records, billing and contact information could be accessed as a result.

The hospital says the email account also contained more than 3,500 Social Security numbers.

Earlier this week, the hospital sent out letters to affected patients to let them know about the breach.

Loyal Wescott was one of those patients that received his letter Wednesday morning. He says he should have been notified weeks ago and wants the hospital to be held accountable.

"They didn't know anything," Wescott said. "I realize that the mail takes a couple of days, but not all the way to March 15th of this year."

The hospital says it can't say if any information was actually accessed, but a spokeswoman for the hospital says they have doubled down on security.

The hospital says a new IT specialist was hired, and they're conducting security audits. Staff is also getting trained on patient security and software to prevent another breach from happening again.