Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island has acknowledged a major lapse in security that resulted in the release of personal information on thousands of its members.

"Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island (BCBSRI) today announced that personal information belonging to approximately 12,000 BlueCHiP for Medicare members was inadvertently contained in a filing cabinet donated with other surplus office furniture to a local nonprofit organization," according to DataBreaches.net.

"The filing cabinet mistakenly contained completed BlueCHiP for Medicare Health Surveys from 2001 to early 2004," the article states. "The surveys included names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, Medicare identification numbers, and self-reported medical information."

Click here to read the DataBreaches.net article.