Recent HIPAA News
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Gulf Coast Pain Consultants, also called Clearway Pain Solutions Institute, found out that its EMR system was accessed by an unauthorized individual. A breach investigation which started on February 20, 2019 revealed that a variety [...]
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993 beneficiaries of Medicaid or have obtained services from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) living in Ohio received notification that unauthorized persons potentially viewed some of their protected health information (PHI) [...]
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A malware was installed on the systems of Riverplace Counseling Center in Anoka, MN, which resulted to the access of the protected health information (PHI) of patients by unauthorized persons. The counseling center discovered the [...]
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The website of Blue Cross of Idaho was hacked resulting to the access of its member portal by an unauthorized person who viewed the protected health information (PHI) of some members. Blue Cross of Idaho [...]
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The consultancy company CynergisTek conducted a study recently and found that healthcare organizations aren’t in conformity to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) controls. CynergisTek studied the NIST CSF [...]
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The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) received another report of a phishing attack that resulted to the compromise of an employee’s email account. This security breach transpired on or before March 26, 2018. This [...]
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Massachusetts Baystate Health had a phishing attack which impacted the protected health information (PHI) of 12,000 patients. A few employees had their email accounts compromised between February 7 to March 7, 2019. When Baystate Health [...]
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A phishing attack on Palmetto Health, which is now called Prisma Health, allowed unauthorized persons to access several email accounts. Palmetto Health employees received email messages that have a malicious hyperlink. When the employees clicked [...]
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Can Docusign be used with electronic protected health information (ePHI) by healthcare organizations without violating HIPAA Rules? Is DocuSign compliant with HIPAA? DocuSign is a provider that offers electronic signature and transaction management services. DocuSign [...]
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Amazon announced a new service that allows healthcare professionals to de-identify medical images by automatically removing any identifying protected health information (PHI) presented in the images. Pictures taken in medical settings often contain personally identifiable [...]
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A group of 81 female patients of Sharp HealthCare and Sharp Grossmont Hospital have filed a lawsuit against the facility for severe breaches in patient privacy. The lawsuit alleges that the hospital secretly recorded video [...]
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The number of health and fitness apps and devices has exploded in recent years. These technologies offer the user assistance in achieving a healthier lifestyle by offering personalised guidance or helping the user track any [...]
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A patient who found her discovered that her private medical information was available on social media platforms is suing the Northwestern Medicine Regional Medical Group for PHI exposure. Earlier this month, Gina Graziano discovered that [...]
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UCLA Health has settled a class action lawsuit filed by victims of a 2014 data breach for $7.5 million. The UCLA Health breach was one of the largest data breaches in history. Hackers accessed the [...]
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Beazley Breach Response Services have released a new report indicating that 71% of ransomware attacks target small and medium businesses (SMBs). Ransomware is malware variant which denies the user access to their device, or individual [...]
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Security researchers have identified two vulnerabilities in the Conexus telemetry protocol used by Medtronic MyCarelink monitors, CareLink monitors, CareLink 2090 programmers, and 17 implanted cardiac devices. One vulnerability is rated as ‘critical’, and the other [...]
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The University of Washington is alerting nearly a million patients of a data breach that resulted in unauthorised individuals being able to access their protected health information (PHI) through search engines online. The error was [...]
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Senator Gary Farmer (D-FL) and Representative Bobby DuBose (D-FL) have proposed new bills concerning consumers’ data privacy rights over their biometric data. The Florida Biometric Information Privacy Act aims to “establish requirements and restrictions on [...]
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Sharecare Health Data Services has reported that an unauthorised individual gained access to sensitive information stored in their systems. Sharecare Health Data Services (SHDS), based in San Diego, provides secure electronic exchange and medical records [...]
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Phishing attacks against large organisations have become increasingly common in recent years. Sectors that deal with sensitive information, such as the healthcare sector and financial industries, are particularly at risk of attack. Credit card numbers [...]
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The 2019 edition of the Verizon Mobile Security Index has been released, showing the significant risk that mobile device breaches pose to the healthcare industry. The report surveyed eight industry sectors to assess the data [...]
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Columbia Surgical Specialists have announced a ransomware attack on their facility has potentially compromised the PHI of up to 400,000 patients. Columbia Surgical Specialists (CSS), based in Spokane, Washington, discovered the attack on January 9, [...]
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Marketo is Marketing Automation software focused on account-based marketings. In April 2018, Adobe purchased Marketo for $4.75 billion. The software has received widespread praise, such as featuring on the Wall Street Journal’s “Next Big Thing” [...]
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Senator Catherine Cortex Masto (D-NV) has introduced a new bill which aims to tackle concerns consumers face about the collection and use of their data. Senator Catherine Cortex Masto’s “Data Privacy Act” calls for organisations [...]
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Kentucky Counselling Center has announced that a data breach has resulted in the exposure of 16,440 patient data files. On January 4, 2019, a former employee notified Kentucky Counselling Center (KCC) that they had received [...]
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Rutland Medical Center has announced it has experienced a data breach after an unauthorised individual gained access to the email accounts of several employees. An employee of Rutland Medical Center noticed the breach after realising [...]
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UConn Health has announced that a recent phishing attack has compromised approximately 326,000 patient files. UConn Health is the branch of the University of Connecticut that oversees clinical care, advanced biomedical research, and academic education [...]
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Drupal has released an update which corrects a critical vulnerability in the Drupal CMS. Drupal is a free and open-source content management framework and provides the back-end framework for approximately 2.3% of websites worldwide. The [...]
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Deep Instinct has announced that it has identified a new phishing campaign is spreading Separ malware. Researchers at Deep Instinct identified the last campaign in January 2019. The threat actors behind this version of [...]
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The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has released a guide to mobile device security. The guide entitled NIST Special Publication 1800-4 Mobile Device Security: Cloud & Hybrid Builds provides practical advice for organisations looking to [...]
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Akamai has announced the discovery of a new phishing attack that spoofs a Google webpage. Larry Cashdollar, working at Akamai, a cloud service provider, discovered the fraud campaign. Like many other phishing campaigns, this attack [...]
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Researchers at Carbon Black have identified a new Shlayer malware variant that targets Mac computers running MacOS versions 10.10.5 to 10.14.3. The researchers first identified the OrA new Shlayer malware variant a year ago. Mac [...]
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The Oregon Health Information Property Act proposes that individuals may give permission to their healthcare providers to sell their health data and receive financial compensation from the transaction. Democrat Senator Floyd Prozanski proposed Senate [...]
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A new Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack targeting high-level executives has been identified. BEC campaigns are a form of phishing attack in which the cybercriminal impersonates a high-ranking member of an organisation, such as CEO [...]
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Dropbox is a popular file hosting service used by over 500 million people worldwide. It is becoming increasingly popular with businesses and organisations as a way of storing files, as it reduces costs by reducing [...]
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The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) has issued an alert about vulnerabilities found in the IDenticard PremiSys access control system. ICS-CERT, a governmental organisation that works to reduce the risk of cybercrime [...]
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Aetna has agreed to pay the California Attorney General $935,000 for a 2017 breach which resulted in the exposure of the HIV status of 1,991 Californian residents. In July 2017, Aetna, a health insurer based [...]
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The Supreme Court of Illinois has issued a new ruling which allows individuals whose privacy has been violated through a breach of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act to take legal action against a private [...]
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Radware has released a report that reveals the cost of a cyber attack to businesses has increased by 52% in the past year. Radware researchers surveyed 790 professionals across the globe in a variety of [...]
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HIPAA Rules requires organizations in the healthcare industry place adequate safeguards on sensitive data they hold to ensure that the integrity and security of protected healthcare information (PHI) is maintained. Many of these stipulations are [...]
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The Governor of Massachusetts has signed in a new law that updates the state’s existing data breach laws. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed the law, named “An Act relative to consumer protection from security breaches” [...]
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A Georgia-based paediatric cardiologist was sentenced to 6 months’ probation after pleading guilty to violating HIPAA legislation by disclosing patient PHI to an unauthorised organisation. Dr Eduardo Montana, 55, plead guilty at the Department of [...]
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An alert has been issued to IT service providers and their customers about an increase in Chinese malicious cyber activity. The warning was issued by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) United States Computer Emergency Readiness [...]
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The results of an investigation into a data breach at SingHealth, Singapore’s largest health network, highlight the importance of even the most basic cybersecurity practices for organisations across the globe. The data breach at SingHealth [...]
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The National Counterintelligence and Security Centre (NCSC) has launched a public awareness campaign with the aim of improving the response of businesses to cybersecurity threats. NCSC, part of the Office of the Director of National [...]
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A study has been published which investigated how data breaches affect hospital advertising expenditure decisions. The study, entitled “Understanding the Relationship Between Data Breaches and Hospital Advertising Expenditures” was published by Sung J. Choi, PhD [...]
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A cybersecurity blog has reported that a new vishing scam in which the scammer pretends to be an employee of Apple Inc. has been uncovered. Vishing is a less common form of phishing attack. The [...]
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Microsoft has issued patches for 51 vulnerabilities this January 2019 Patch Tuesday. Of the vulnerabilities, 7 were rated critical. Unlike the four preceding months, none vulnerabilities were identified as being actively exploited in the wild. [...]
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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a critically important piece of legislation created to introduce minimum security and privacy standards in the healthcare industry. HIPAA is a federal law, organisations [...]
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The San Diego Unified School District has announced that a phishing attack on its network has affected more than half a million of its staff and current and former students. The San Diego Unified School [...]