No one wants their personal, private health information plastered on the internet for all to see. But that apparently happened to a few thousand of Walmart’s online pharmacy customers, whose prescription histories and other basic information were visible online for a four-day period last month.
The retailer announced on Wednesday that a coding mistake during the migration of servers for its online pharmacy business left the personal information for about 5,000 customers visible online for other customers to see, Reuters reports.
According to Walmart, the issue allowed two customers who were logged into the system at the same time the ability to see the information on the other, including their name, address, date of birth, and prescription history.
The company has no “reason to believe the information was inappropriately used by someone else,” a spokesperson tells Reuters.
Social Security numbers, health insurance information, and full credit and debt card information were not visible during the issue.
The Walmart spokesperson says that the issue was not a hack, but rather a system malfunction during the migration of servers.
“We had a software coding error for a 72-hour period from February 15 to 18 that affected a limited group of online pharmacy customers,” the spokesperson tells Reuters. “We moved quickly to fix the issue once it was discovered.”
The company says it is working to contact the potentially affected customers directly and will offer them identity protection services.
Walmart Says Some Customers’ Rx Info Was Visible Online Due to Glitch [Reuters]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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