Month: April 2019

A notification of enforcement discretion issued by the Department of Health and Human Services about the civil monetary penalties applied whenever there are HIPAA Rules violations discovered will reduce the maximum financial penalty in three […]

The Washington legislature made a unanimous decision to pass HB 1071 / SB 5064, a new data breach notification law. The only the bill needs is the signature of Washington Governor Jay Inslee. The law […]

The King County Superior Court lately agreed to a $4.7 million settlement to pay back the people whose personal data were stolen in a breach at Washington State University in April 2017. Portable hard drives […]

Three breaches involving patients’ protected health information (PHI) due to email hacking were reported. The three hacking incidents affected a total of 8,635 patients. The first breach happened in the Center for Sight and Hearing […]

The HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has published a second draft of the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) and is accepting comments on the revised material. The objective […]

The highly sensitive data of patients who had received treatment at addiction rehabilitation centers were discovered to be publicly accessible online because of an unsecured database. There were around 4.91 million records in the database, […]

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 […]

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) […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]