The American Dental Association (ADA) recently mailed 37,000 credit card sized flash drives to its members that included new billing codes, entitled 2016 CDT Manual. Unfortunately, also included on the USB drive was malware used by criminals to infect users’ systems that allows full access to the system. So when the 37,000 dentists put the USB drive into their computer thinking they were getting the new billing codes, they were directed to a known web page that distributed malware, which presumably infected their systems.

Apparently, the USB drives were manufactured in China by one of the ADA’s vendors. China is obviously notorious for being a source of cyber attacks.

When the ADA found out about the problem through “a handful of reports,” it sent an email to its members, saying “Your anti-virus software should detect the malware if it is present. However,if you haven’t used…the flash drive, please throw it away.” It then provided instructions on how to download a pdf version. Not sure why they didn’t send the pdf version the first time.

The ADA stated that it will review whether to continue to distribute products through physical media.

I am thinking we will hear more about this story from the dentists whose anti virus software did not detect the malware. All you dentists out there: beware.

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