Online Storage Vendor Pays Ransom to Retrieve Healthcare Data Stolen During Cyberattack
The protected health information (PHI) of 29,982 patients of Harvard Eye Associates located in Laguna Hills, CA was potentially stolen due to a cyberattack on its cloud storage provider. The medical and surgical eye care services provider received notification on January 15, 2021 that cyber attackers acquired access to the computer network of its storage vendor and exfiltrated data. It’s not sure if the attackers had encrypted...
100% of Screened mHealth Applications Prone to API Attacks
The personally identifiable health information of a huge number of people is being compromised by means of the Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) employed by mobile health (mHealth) apps, reported by a current study shared by cybersecurity agency Approov. Ethical hacker and researcher Allissa Knight carried out the study to discover how protected famous mHealth apps are and if it’s possible to acquire access to users’...
$75,000 Paid by Renown Health to Settle its HIPAA Right of Access Case
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is moving forward with its campaign to stop noncompliance with the HIPAA Right of Access. OCR reported its fifteenth settlement this week that resolved a HIPAA Right of Access enforcement action. Renown Health, a Northern Nevada non-profit healthcare network, agreed to pay a financial penalty of $75,000 for its HIPAA case with OCR in order to take care of its...
Ransomware Attacks on Ramsey County and Crisp Regional Health Services and Vulnerability in Vaccine Scheduling Application
The County Manager’s Office of Ramsey County, MN has begun informing 8,700 customers of its Family Health Division regarding the potential access of some of their personal data by unauthorized persons brought about by a ransomware attack on its vendor Netgain Technology LLC. Netgain Technology LLC based in St. Cloud offers technology solutions to Ramsey County, such as an application utilized by the Family Health Division for...
Brandywine Urology Consultants Data Breach Lawsuit Dismissed Because of Lacking Evidence of Harm
The Delaware Superior Court dismissed a legal action filed on behalf of affected individuals of a Brandywine Urology Consultants data breach because the plaintiffs failed to present proof showing they had experienced harm because of the breach. Brandywine Urology Consultants encountered a ransomware attack on January 27, 2020 The attack was identified after two days and the succeeding investigation affirmed the attackers got access to...
Philadelphia Department of Public Health Ends Vaccine Distribution Agreement Due to Alleged Privacy Breaches
The contract of Philly Fighting COVID to dispense COVID-19 vaccines in Philadelphia city with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health was terminated because of allegations that the company’s privacy policies possibly made possible the sale of private information to third parties. Philly Fighting COVID started out as a nonprofit company providing coronavirus screening and then switched to supplying COVID-19 vaccinations. The...
$5.1 Million Penalty Paid by Excellus Health Plan to Settle HIPAA Violation Case
Health insurance company Excellus Health Plan agreed to pay the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights $5.1 million as a penalty to settle its HIPAA violation case associated with the 2015 data breach that affected 9.3 million individuals. Excellus Health Plan uncovered the data breach in 2015, the same year when the massive data breaches linked to medical insurance companies Anthem Inc. (78.8 million...
Email Security Breaches at Roper St. Francis Healthcare and Einstein Health Network
Roper St. Francis Healthcare has informed 189,761 patients regarding an unauthorized individual who accessed some of their protected health information (PHI) saved in employee email accounts. The provider detected the email security breach in late October 2020. The subsequent investigation confirmed the compromise of three email accounts from October 14 to October 29, 2020. An evaluation of the email accounts was done to find out if...
Emisoft Reports No Less Than 560 Ransomware Attacks on U.S. Healthcare Facilities in 2020
Ransomware attacks in 2020 had a huge impact on companies and organizations in America. Ransomware gangs targeted the healthcare and education sectors, the federal, state, and municipal governments and departments. These sectors had no less than 2,354 attacks in 2020 as per the most recent State of Ransomware report of Emsisoft, a cybersecurity company based in New Zealand. There were more ransomware attacks toward the latter part of...
Twitter Paid $544,000 Penalty for its GDPR Data Breach Violations
Twitter paid a penalty of €450,000 ($544,600) for its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) violation. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) issued a penalty that is related to the privacy breach report submitted by Twitter last January 2019. On January 8, 2019, Twitter International Company sent to the DPC a breach notification letter. On January 22, 2019, DPC began an investigation of Twitter to determine if it is...
OCR to Have Enforcement Discretion in Relation to the Use of Internet or Cloud-based Scheduling Software for COVID-19 Vaccination Sessions
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has stated that it is going to implement enforcement discretion and will not issue financial penalties on HIPAA-covered entities or business associates in the event of HIPAA rules violations associated with the honest use of online or web-based scheduling applications (WBSAs) for booking individual visits for COVID-19 shots. The notice of enforcement discretion is...
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s $4.3 Million HIPAA Penalty Revoked on Appeal
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has reversed the $4,348,000 HIPAA violation charges enforced by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights on the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The Civil Monetary Penalty was charged to M.D. Anderson in 2018 after the investigation of three data breaches that were reported to OCR between 2013 and 2014 concerning the loss/stealing of...
Advantages of Healthcare Text Messaging Emphasized by New Analysis
Additional evidence has appeared presenting the advantages of healthcare written messaging. A recently published study in the Journal of the American Heart Association obviously indicated that an automatic mHealth interference using Smartphone and text messages tracing applications might prove to be a good approach for rising patients’ physical activity stages. The advantages of rising activity stages, particularly for patients with...
Highmark BCBS of Delaware Probes Data Break Impacting 19K People
Highmark BlueCross BlueShield of Delaware is probing a data break which has affected 19,000 payees of employer-paid health policies. The data break affects 2 contractors of Highmark BCBS – BCS Financial Corporation and Summit Reinsurance Services. Highmark BSBC director of secrecy as well as information supervision, Karen Kane, released a statement stating 16 former and current Highmark self-insured clients have been affected....
$475K Settlement for Late HIPAA Break Notice
The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR has publicized the 1st HIPAA payment of current year. This is additionally the 1st settlement so far exclusively based on a needless delay to break notice after the revelation of patients’ safeguarded health info. Presence Health, among the biggest healthcare systems serving people of Illinois, has consented to pay OCR $475K to resolve possible HIPAA Break Notice Law breaches. After a...
108 L.A. County Workers Impacted by Phishing Attack – 756K Affected
The County of Los Angeles took some time to publicize it was the sufferer of a big phishing attack, particularly bearing in mind the attack was found out within a day of the May, 2016 break. However, the announcement had to be postponed so as not to hamper with a “broad” criminal inquiry. The inquiry into the phishing assault was carried out by county district lawyer Jackie Lacey’s cyber inquiry response group. In several cases,...
OCR Alerts Protected Bodies of Danger of DDoS Attacks
Over the past few weeks, there has been a rise in Denial of Service (DOS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assaults. The assaults include inundating systems with requests and information to affect those systems to collapse. The attacks have led to big parts of the Internet taken off, email systems have stopped, as well as other computer equipment taken out off. DDoS assaults on healthcare companies could avoid sick persons...
UMass to Pay the Office for Civil Rights $650K to Settle HIPAA Breaches
The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR has consented to a $650K agreement with University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). The agreement solves HIPAA breaches that caused the UMass undergoing a malware contagion in 2013. In early 2013, a malevolent program was set up on a computer terminal in the Center for Speech, Language, and Hearing. The infection led to the forbidden revelation of the electronic safeguarded health...
Seguin Dermatology Declares Ransomware Assault ePHI Access Possible
Texas-centered Seguin Dermatology has begun notifying patients of a ransomware assault that has likely led to electronic protected health information being wrongly accessed. The assault happened around or on September 12, 2016, and affected a computer network used by the Bureau of Robert J. Magnon, Doctor of Medicine. The ransomware encrypted many file varieties avoiding data access. Although the computer network wasn’t used to save...
Kaiser Permanente Alerts Members of ePHI Revelation
Kaiser Permanente is alerting a few of its associates of a website formation mistake that led to the revelation of a few of their safeguarded health information. Luckily, the mistake was swiftly known and ePHI was just revealed for about 2 hours. On October 12, 2016, an upgrading to the site, Kp.org was carried out to increase loading speed of webpage; but, a misconfiguration led to revelation of some members’ ePHI to other site...
Operations Annulled After 3 UK Hospitals are Paralyzed by Computer Infection
Cyberattacks on healthcare suppliers in the U.S. are happening at a frightening speed; nevertheless, it’s not just U.S healthcare companies which are targeted by cybercriminals. During the weekend, a big security case was informed by a National Health Service Trust in the U.K. The case has led to computer systems taken offline and scheduled operations and appointments canceled at 3 U.K. hospitals – Princess of Wales Hospital in...
Analysis Emphasizes Danger of PHI Revelation from Unencrypted Healthcare Pagers
Several healthcare suppliers have now changed from pagers to more safe types of communication. Safe text messaging platforms permit safeguarded health info to be communicated swiftly and efficiently between doctors and care team associates. Those platforms include the necessary safety features to make sure messages can’t be interrupted and seen by illegal people. However, pagers usually lack safety limits such as encryption. Numerous...
St. Joseph Health to make Payment of OCR $2.14 Million to Resolve HIPAA Case
The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR has declared it has decided to resolve possible breaches of the HIPAA Security and Privacy Laws with St. Joseph Health (SJH). St. Joseph Health has to pay $2,140.50 to OCR and implement a corrective action plan (CAP) to bring procedures and policies up to the standard required by HIPAA. St. Joseph Health is a not-for-profit cohesive Catholic health care distribution method backed by the...
OCR Alerts of FTP Weaknesses in NAS Appliances
The Division of Health and Human Services OCR has released a notice to HIPAA protected bodies as well as their business associates of a surge in assaults on network attached storage (NAS) appliances. The appliances are being assaulted using a type of malware known as Mal/Miner-C, or else called PhotMiner. The assault uses File Transfer Protocol (FTP) weaknesses in Network attached storage appliances. The malevolent program was...
Assistance on HIPAA as well as Cloud Computing Released by HHS
The Division of Health and Human Services has issued revised advice on cloud computing and HIPAA to assist protected bodies to take benefit of the cloud devoid of endangering a HIPAA breach. The key emphasis of the help is the usage of cloud service providers (CSPs). CSPs which are lawfully independent bodies from a HIPAA-covered body are categorized as business associates as per HIPAA rules if the cloud service provider has to...
Main Ohio Urology Consortium Notifies 300K Patients of PHI Thievery
Patients of Central Ohio Urology Consortium whose safeguarded health information was thieved and displayed live in August have now been informed of the safety break. Although it’s not sure precisely when the hack happened, the data thieved in the cyberattack were put live on August 2, 2016. Hackers uploaded a wide variety of patient files to Google Drive that were freely accessible. Pravvy Sector (Pravyi Sektor) – the hackers behind...
$400K HIPAA Payment for BAA Failures
The Section of Human and Health Services’ OCR has stated it has concluded an agreement with Care New England Health System (CNE) to settle suspected breaches of the HIPAA. CNE should reimburse a financial fine of $400K and should implement a complete Corrective Action Plan (CAP) to tackle different parts of HIPAA defiance. Care New England Wellbeing Organization (CNE) offers central company help for several subordinate allied...
New Review Indicates Data Break Cost is $200K for each Happening
A new review indicates the cost of deciding breaks of confidential information is much lower than earlier thought. The charges are so little that for several firms there is a slight inducement to finance more cash to expand cybersecurity protections. Examining the price of data breaks is a difficult matter. There are direct charges connected with breaks which are not difficult to calculate: The printing as well as dispatching of break...
Deficiency of Ransomware Defenses Might Breach FTC Law
The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR has lately distributed guidance for HIPAA covered entities on ransomware to assist protected bodies trade with the enhanced danger of ransomware assaults. Recently the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has cautioned companies that they should do more to cope with the ransomware danger. The failure to apply proper safeguards against ransomware might constitute a breach of the FTC Law. At the...
8.8 Million Healthcare Files Penetrated in August
August was a regretful month for healthcare files breaks. Over 8.8 million health plan member and patient files were stolen or exposed. 8,804,608 to be exact. As per the up-to-date segment of the Protenus Break Indicator, the total quantity of healthcare files exposed or stolen this summer now surpasses 20 million. In August, 44 break reports were presented to the Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR which pertain to 42 separate...
Revised Safety Risk Evaluation Device Announced by ONC
OCR has a preference to resolve HIPAA conformity problems through voluntary conformity as well as non-punitive ways, even though financial fines are these days becoming more usual. If OCR detectives discover HIPAA breaches, financial fines might be imposed. Penalties of as much as $1.5 million can be imposed for each breach type found. Among the most usual causes for a financial fine is the failure to carry out a complete,...
HIMSS Analysis Discloses Shocking Healthcare Safety Weaknesses
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) has circulated the outcomes of its yearly healthcare cybersecurity analysis. The report demonstrates that healthcare companies are using a range of methods to enhance their safety posture as well as keep confidential files safeguarded. But, several companies are failing to use fundamental cybersecurity skills to avoid illegal editing of PHI. Should PHI be edited by...
Biggest Ever HIPAA Agreement: Advocate Health to Reimburse OCR $5.5 Million
Previous month, the Department of Health and Human Services’ OCR publicized 2 huge agreements with protected entities to settle suspected HIPAA breaches. Nevertheless, even the $2.7 million, as well as, $2.75 million settlements at UMMC and OHSU were not big as compared to the latest implementation case. OCR has just publicized it has consented to the biggest ever HIPAA agreement with a single protected body. Advocate Health Care...
Huge 3.7 Million Highest Healthcare Cyberattack Exposed
A huge data break has been informed by a Phoenix AZ-based healthcare company which has possibly affected 3.7 million people. The assault is the 2nd biggest cyberattack informed thus far in 2016, just second to previous month’s 9.3 million highest break on an as of yet unverified health underwriter. Early accounts of the assault on Banner Health show that healthcare accounts weren’t the main objective. The attack seems to have been...
2.75 Million Dollar HIPAA Agreement Achieved with UMMC
Immediately after the 2.7 million HIPAA break agreement with OHSU comes news of one more multi-million-dollar agreement with one more university. The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR declared four days ago that University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) has consented to settle down suspected HIPAA breaches and will reimburse a monetary fine of $2.75 million. UMMC has also consented to implement a corrective action plan...
Oregon Health & Science Varsity to Pay The Office for Civil Rights $2.7 Million for 2013 Data Breaks
Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) has consented to resolve a lawsuit with the Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR originating from 2 data breaks suffered in 2013. A fine of $2.7 million will be funded by OHSU to resolve suspected HIPAA breaches without confession of responsibility. The secrecy breaks happened soon after each other during 2013. Within the duration of 3 months, the safeguarded health information of...
North Ottawa Medical Group Alerts 22K of Bizmatics Break
North Ottawa Medical Group has alerted 22K of its sick persons that they have been affected by a malevolent program contagion which was found out by its Electronic Medical Record management firm, Bizmatics. North Ottawa Medical Group merges a lengthy list of companies which have been affected by the break. The latest declaration brings the total quantity of patients impacted by the security break to more than 265K people. The...
Philadelphia BA Agrees to $650K OCR Payment
The Division of Health and Human Services’ OCR issued particulars of a settlement which was concluded with Catholic Health Care Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CHCS) on June 24, 2016. CHCS has approved to settle down suspected HIPAA breaches with the Office for Civil Rights OCR as well as has approved to execute a Corrective Action Plan. Catholic Health Care Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia will also reimburse...
655K Health Files from Unreported Data Breaks Purchasable on Darknet
Throughout the last few weeks, huge data dumps occurred from extraordinary cyberattacks on MySpace, LinkedIn, and Tumblr. More lately, in excess of 33 million mutilated Twitter accounts were registered online for sale. These accounts are thought to have been mutilated making use of the records gotten in the LinkedIn break. Provided the quantity of healthcare data breaks that have happened during the last few years, it’s to be...
Texas Health and Human Services Commission Informs 600 of PHI Revelation
A storage servicer has notified the loss of 15 storing packets to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). The packets were stowed at 3 Iron Mountain services in Fort Worth, Dallas, as well as Irving. The packets had records pertaining to people who had submitted applications to HHSC for medical help during January 1, 2008, to August 31, 2009. The records had names, dates of birth, addresses, Social Security claim...
Kern County Mental Health Division Publicizes Secrecy Break
Kern County Mental Health Division, CA. (KCMH) has informed a break of safeguarded health information that happened during the transfer of its administrative division in April 2016. The break included the revelation of a partial amount of safeguarded health information of sick persons who had earlier received treatment from KCMH during September 1, to September 30, 2006. When the administrative department moved, the previous offices...
Up to 400K Prisoners’ SSNs and PHI Revealed
Up to 400K existing and earlier inmates imprisoned by the California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections during 1996 to 2014 have possibly had their medical data, Social Security numbers, and personally identifiable information displayed. Last month California Correctional Healthcare Services (CCHCS) reported the data break and an alternate break notice was displayed on the website of CCHCS on May 13; nevertheless, at the...
Verity Health System Prey of Phishing Assault
Verity Health System has become prey to a phishing assault leading to confidential worker data being transmitted out of the company. Employee names, Social Security numbers, addresses, money earned in the fiscal year, as well as particulars of tax pending have been revealed to the invader. The break only impacted present and past workers who would have gotten a W-2 for the past fiscal year. No patient information was encroached in the...
40,000 Podiatry Patients Notified of PHI Revelation
Earlier this year, Stamford Podiatry Group P.C., has found out that an illegal third party accessed to its computer systems for a period of nearly 2 months. The intruder was capable to see company data and possibly accessed the electronic medicinal record (EMR) database also. 40,491 patients have now been informed of the secrecy break and possible theft/accessing of their safeguarded health info. EMR files potentially copied/accessed...
Tucson Emergency Chamber Patients’ PHI Thieved from Doctor’s Automobile
Roughly 1K patients in Southern Arizona have received notices of a break of safeguarded health information after the thievery of a doctor’s record. The record had been dumped in the automobile of a doctor who performed for Emergency Medicine Associates, which delivered ER staff for Carondelet Health Network hospices in Tucson. A burglar broke into the doctor’s automobile on or around March 25, 2016, and took away the logbook. The...
HHS Publicizes Release of the Ultimate Data Safety Policy Rules Framework
Sylvia Matthews Burwell, HHS Secretary has publicized the release of the ultimate Data Safety Policy Rules Framework for the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) which was introduced by President Obama in the early part of 2015. The Security Principles Framework was upgraded to assist healthcare companies that take part in the PMI know the safety measures that should be implemented to safeguard sensitive environmental, health, and...
Medical Colleagues of Texas Hacking Case Affects 68,000 Patients
Medical Colleagues of Texas, a doctors’ alliance in Katy, TX. has found out an illegal person gotten entry to its system having the files of over 68,000 patients. The precise description of the case hasn’t been revealed and an inquiry into the safety break is continuing. The doctors’ alliance was ignorant how access was gotten to its methods at the time of sending the break notification; nevertheless, the inquiry into the break has...
95000 More Patients Revealed to Have Been Affected by Bizmatics Data Break
The OCR has gotten two more break reports from healthcare suppliers affected by the Bizmatics data break. Nearly 95K patients of the 2 healthcare services have possibly had their files accessed by cyberpunks. Southeast Eye Institute P.A, carrying out business as Eye Associates of Pinellas, has informed 87,314 patients of the break, whereas Lafayette Pain Care, PC. has possibly had the files of 7,500 people searched by cyberpunks. Eye...
Illinois Data Break Notice Law Renewed
Illinois data break notice rule has been updated, widening the meaning of private information and modifying the timescale for alerting the Attorney General of data breaks. A break notice will have to be released if an individual’s complete name or last name, as well as signature, is revealed in association with any of the below-mentioned data elements: Health insurance information Medical information Email addresses and...
4K Michigan Chiropractic Patients Informed of Possible Data Break
4,082 sick persons of Complete Chiropractic & Bodywork Therapies (CCBT) have been informed of a possible break of safeguarded health information following malware was found in one of the firm’s servers. The malware was found on 19th March, 2016, when the server failed. The failing of the server triggered CCBT’s safety procedures which incorporated stopping Internet access, separating the server, as well as altering all...