ROYAL OAK, Mich. (AP) – About 2,700 people were able to use an online scheduling vulnerability to register late for COVID-19 vaccines, according to a health care system in the Detroit area.
Beaumont Health said it determined that a user publicly shared an unauthorized scheduling path.
“This allowed 2,700 people to ‘cut the queue’,” said the health care system of eight hospitals on Sunday. “Beaumont is canceling all appointments that used the unauthorized route.”
“These appointments violate the ethical distribution structure created by Beaumont based on Michigan’s mandatory vaccine guidelines,” said Hans Keil, senior vice president and chief information officer for Beaumont Health.
The problem will not affect properly scheduled vaccination appointments, he added.
Beaumont’s information technology team detected and shut down unusual activities on Saturday in its Epic electronic medical record system. Personal medical records were not compromised and users were unable to access hospital records, Beaumont said.
Beaumont reported other recent security problems, Detroit News said. In July, it announced that an “unauthorized third party” gained access to employee email accounts that contained personal information for up to 6,000 patients. In April, he reported a data breach the previous year that, according to authorities, could have exposed personal information of up to 112,000 people.