Recent HIPAA News

Stacey Lavette Hendricks, who is a 49-year-old local of Leesburg, FL, pleaded guilty to wire fraudulence and aggravated identity theft. Hendricks was an employee in a medical clinic who was caught impermissibly accessing the protected [...]

The 2019 Internet Crime Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) was just presented. It shows that cybercrime losses in 2019 exceeded $3.5 billion. IC3 received about 1,300 per [...]

Hospital Sisters Health System just lately found out that an email security breach occurred in August 2019. Unauthorized persons potentially accessed e-mail messages and attachments that contain the protected health information (PHI) of 16,167 patients. [...]

Sunshine Behavioral Health Group based in Portland, OR provides business services to healthcare companies. The group reported a breach of its cloud-based system that stored patient medical records because of an accidental misconfiguration. Patient data [...]

The Center for Counseling & Family Relationships (CCFAM) is a big group counseling private practice centered in Fort Worth, TX, which was recently reported as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant after finishing [...]

The new Ponemon Institute research reveals that the occurrence of cybersecurity incidents due to insiders has gone up by 47% in the last two years. The average yearly global cost due to those cybersecurity incidents [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services announced the changes to a final rule of the HIPAA National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) D.0 Telecommunication Standard requiring pharmacies to keep tabs on partly filled [...]

Dr. Huddle recently announced its completion of the 6-Stage HIPAA Risk Analysis and remediation process of the Compliancy Group. This Cupertino, CA-based startup has been proven to be in compliance with the HIPAA Security, Privacy, [...]

The association of private orthopedic surgery professionals, Fondren Orthopedic Group based in Houston and the nearby areas, encountered a cyberattack that impacted some components of its IT system. The substitute breach notice published on Fondren [...]

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published the 2019 Health Statistics, which showed that healthcare expenditures in the U.S.A. are significantly greater than in other developed countries. According to a 2018 Harvard study, [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights made an announcement  regarding the reversal of the following legislative modifications made to the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule of 2013: Changes to the Genetic [...]

In December 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights received 38 reports of healthcare data breaches involving 500 or more records exposed, which is 8.57% more than the reported healthcare [...]

The people behind the Maze ransomware are pushing through with their threats on victims to post stolen data during ransomware attacks when the ransom is not paid. In December, Southwire based in Carrollton, GA declined [...]

Pulse Secure customers received an advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to implement the patch for vulnerability CVE-2019-11510 of the 2019 Pulse Secure VPN . Cybercriminals continue to attack unpatched Pulse Secure [...]

On January 1, 2020, the implementation of the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) began. CCPA gave state residents more privacy protections and new rights relating to their personal data. Healthcare data that is protected by [...]

Healthcare provider InterMed based in Portland, ME is notifying 33,000 patients about the potential compromise of some of their protected health information (PHI) as a result of a phishing attack. InterMed detected the attack on [...]

Adventist Health Sonora in California suffered unauthorized access by a person to a hospital associate’s email account causing the likely compromise of patient data. Adventist Health Sonora’s information security team discovered the email account compromise [...]

To prevent the exploitation of critical vulnerabilities, Microsoft has released patches for all supported Windows versions that need immediate attention. Although no report of vulnerabilities exploitation has been received, the threat is serious and it [...]

A recent survey by Buck revealed that a lot of group health plan sponsors do not fully comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Rules. Buck is a company providing integrated HR and [...]

Threat actors nowadays commonly use ransomware for file encryption to prevent data access. In addition, they steal information and threaten the victims that their stolen data will be published or sold if they would not [...]

A phishing attack on Alomere Health in Alexandria, MN resulted in the potential access of the protected health information (PHI) of almost 50,000 patients by unauthorized individuals. After discovering the phishing attack on November 6, [...]

A week ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a flash alert cautioning private businesses in the United States regarding the possibility of Maze ransomware attacks. The alert came after several days from the [...]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a former employee of an unnamed hospital in New York City pleaded guilty to employing malicious software to acquire the credentials of co-workers, which he afterward misused [...]

In 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued 10 financial penalties and one civil monetary penalty. OCR received a total of $12,274,000 for the settlement of HIPAA violation [...]

Center for Health Care Services (CHCS) based in San Antonio, TX encountered a cyberattack that resulted in computer systems de-activation during the holiday period. CHCS provides individuals with developmental handicaps, mental health problems, and substance [...]

An alert issued by cybersecurity company Emsisoft mentioned the use of a decryptor bug by Ryuk ransomware victims to recover their records. Using this bug in the decryptor application could result in file corruption and [...]

In November 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received 33 healthcare data breach reports with 500 or more records, which is 36.5% less than the reported breaches in [...]

The Northern District of Alabama filed a lawsuit against DCH Health System in the Western Division of U.S. District Court because of a ransomware attack that happened on October 1, 2019. The ransomware attack forced [...]

The second enforcement action was issued by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights as per the HIPAA Right of Access Initiative. Korunda Medical in Florida agreed to resolve potential violations [...]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft of the discussion of a new bipartisan data privacy bill. The bill concerns the national standards for privacy and security and plans to put limits on [...]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights had another busy year with HIPAA enforcement. To date in 2019, OCR imposed 9 financial penalties on HIPAA covered entities and business associates [...]

LifeLabs located in Toronto, one of the biggest Canadian medical testing and diagnostics companies, submitted a serious data breach report. Hackers possibly viewed the personal and medical information of around 15 million individuals, mostly residents [...]

Tidelands Health located in Georgetown, SC, is working 24 / 7 to reestablish its computer systems after discovering malware on its system on December 12, 2019. The malware attack has compelled the healthcare company to [...]

Encryption makes data unavailable to unauthorized people, as long as strong encryption is utilized and the private key to decrypt information isn’t compromised. Not all encryption algorithms give a similar protection level. The effectiveness of [...]

Truman Medical Centers located in Kansas City, MO, the biggest inpatient and outpatient services provider in the city, learned that an unencrypted laptop computer that contains 114,466 patients’ protected health information (PHI) was stolen from [...]

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, the state’s biggest health insurance provider, is currently working to resolve about 200,000 unaddressed vulnerabilities identified on its servers, some of which are over ten years old. In August [...]

Smile Metrics Consulting, a dental marketing consulting company, has finished the 6-Stage HIPAA risk analysis and remediation process of the Compliancy Group and showed it implements a reliable HIPAA compliance program. Smile Metrics Consulting assists [...]

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center located in Wyoming lately discovered the compromise of patient data because of a phishing attack in April. On or around April 5, 2019, the medical center received notification concerning a potential [...]

Sunrise Community Health based in Evans, CO discovered the compromise of several employees’ email accounts because its employees responded to phishing emails. Unauthorized individuals accessed the email accounts from September 11, 2019 to November 22, [...]

Compliancy Group has declared the full compliance of Adstrem, a global advertising technology, and services provider, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The Group also confirms its effective HIPAA compliance plan. Adstream [...]

In June 2016, Banner Health sustained a data breach which resulted in the theft of the protected health information (PHI) of 2.9 million people. Victims of the breach filed a class-action lawsuit in August 2016. [...]

Southeastern Minnesota Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (SEMOMS) made an announcement a ransomware attack that caused the potential exposure of the protected health information (PHI) of about 80,000 patients. The ransomware attack was seen on September [...]