Stanford release a statement blaming the contractor just a week after it was hit with a $20 million lawsuit related to the breach, which the Palo Alto, Calif. health care provider in September.

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court Sept. 28 by one of the affected patients, Shana Springer, who is seeking $1,000 per compromise record, or $20 million.

Stanford last month disclosed that a spreadsheet being handled by a third party billing contractor, Multi Specialties Collection Services (MSCS), was somehow posted on Student of Fortune, a website that lets students solicit homework help for a fee.

The spreadsheet contained names, diagnosis codes, account numbers as well as admission and discharge dates of about 20,000 patients who visited the hospital's Emergency Room in 2009.

In an this week, Stanford Hospital claimed that it encrypted the data sent to MSCS, which was to use it for "permissible hospital billing support purposes."