National Center for Child Health and Development: unauthorized access to its pediatric medical information collection system, which was taken offline

The pediatric medical information collection system, which gathers data on drugs given to children from medical facilities and analyzes whether they were given and how often side effects appear, was accessed without authorization. The center stopped the system and is investigating. [1]

The center said the affected system and server handle and store no personal data. [1]

The October 6 report found the cause was abuse of the WordPress administration account, whose password was easy to guess. No patient data was stored on the site. It also admitted that the response was delayed because the contractor could not be reached on the day of discovery, and that the short retention of access logs limited the investigation. It reviewed ID and password management, access control, operation history and backups, and clarified the contractor's scope of responsibility. [2] [3]