The Tampa Bay Surgery Center sent a letter to 25,000 patients this week alerting them that their personal information was stolen last month and posted on a Twitter account used by the hacker group "The Dark Overlord."

  • Facility said hack occurred on May 4
  • Stolen data contained patient names, social security numbers
  • Stolen information has been removed from Twitter
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“We want our patients to know that we take this incident very seriously,” said Dr. Jay Rosen, chief executive of the facility. “As soon as we learned this occurred, we immediately launched an investigation and engaged leading experts in the field to assist us.”

The facility released a statement that said the hack occurred on May 4, and law enforcement alerted the Tampa Bay Surgery Center the following day. The stolen data contained full patient name, address, date of birth and social security number.

Medical treatments and financial information was not posted.

“Our investigation into this incident is on-going and we will continue to cooperate with law enforcement’s investigation,” Rosen said. “We regret that this occurred and are taking steps to help ensure this does not happen again.”

Rosen said they’re offering one year of free credit monitoring to the affected patients.

We heard complaints from a half dozen parents who said some of the victims are children. Florence Sanders said she received one of the letters from the facility on Monday regarding her three-year-old son.

“To now have his personal information out there is scary,” she said. “I just worry that his information is going to be used for years to come and I won’t know until something happens.”

The Tampa Bay Surgery Center said the stolen information has since been removed from the site.

“There should be a better way to protect the information of our children,” Sanders said. “I’m going to be proactive as a parent… and see what I can do to protect myself and my son -- more than just a credit report.”