The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released an alert regarding certain Abbott Laboratories implantable cardiac devices that have cybersecurity weaknesses that could possibly be targeted to alter the usability of the devices. A number implantable cardiac...
The National Institute of Standards and Technology published an updated version of its Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (Cybersecurity Framework) on April 16, 2018. The Cybersecurity Framework was first made available on February 2014 and...
Over a period of three and a half years, 1,071 patients of Des Moines Crisis Observation Center, who received medical services at the operated by Polk County Health Services Inc., have been contacted to advise them that some of their protected health information has...
582,174 patients of the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) is contacting customers to inform them that their protected health information has possibly been compromised. Last February 11, 2018, some people broke into the DDS legal and audits offices...
It has been discovered that UnityPoint Health employee accounts have been compromised and accessed by unauthorized persons. The employee email accounts were initially accessed on November 1, 2017 and went on for a period of three months until February 7, 2018, when...
It has been discovered that a former employee of Baptist Health’s West Kendall Baptist Hospital in Miami, FL obtained the credit card details of patients and used the data to make fraudulent purchases. The improper use of credit cards was first noticed by Baptist...
Physiatry Group Integrated Rehab Consultants based in Chicago, IL-based is issuing notification letters to impacted patients alerting them of the exposure of some of their protected health information in line with HIPAA requirements. However, the breach was not first...
A improperly configured security setting on a radiology interface has lead to the exposure of tens of thousands of patients’ protected health data. A multi-specialty physicians’ organization based in Middleton, NY, Middletown Medical, first noticed the misconfigured...
Texas Health Resources, a group providing services to over 1.7 million patients in North Texas, is alerting ‘fewer than 4,000 patients’ that a portion of of their sensitive information may have been obtained by an unauthorized person. The data breach may have happened...
It has been discovered that a number of email accounts of staff members of UnityPoint Health have been accessed by unauthorized individuals. Staff email accounts were first accessed on November 1, 2017 and went on for a duration of three months, ending on February 7,...
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has released a new patient guidebook on health record access. The guidebook goes through how patients can access their health data, offers advice for checking health...
The term ‘vital interests’ is not new. In fact, it was written into legislation in Schedule 2 paragraph 4 of the 1998 Act. At the time ‘vital interests’ referred to those of subjects whose data was being collected. GDPR has widened the term to...
Chesapeake Regional Healthcare has found that two hard drives storing the protected health information (PHI) of around 2,100 patients ave gone missing from the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center campus located in Chesapeake, Virginia. The data saved on the devices...
Oregon has reviewed its data breach notification law to enhance protections for state citizens whose personal information is exposed in a data violation. State governor Kate Brown put her signature to Senate Bill (SB 1551) in March, which brings several regulations up...
The use of the words ‘citizen of the European Union’ can be confusing in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For GDPR compliance requirements, it makes more sense to talk about individuals who are located “in the Union” (within the EU), and...
A recent survey carried out by the Ponemon Institute for ServiceNow has unveiled that healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are not keeping up to date on patching. Weaknesses are not being patched quickly leaving organizations susceptible to attack. The survey was...
Verizon has published its yearly Protected Health Information Breach Report which digs deep into the main factors behind the breaches, why they happen, the motivations of internal and external threat actors, and the main dangers to the confidentiality, integrity, and...
A network of physicians linked to more over that 50 medical practices in New Jersey, Virtua Medical Group, has been hit with a massive financial penalty by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office for failing to safeguard the privacy of over 1,650 patients whose...
A targeted phishing attack carried out on CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield has lead to the exposure of 6,800 plan subscriber’ protected health data. The attack was first discovered by CareFirst on March 12, 2018, resulting in a complete review of their systems, which...
The Special Agents Mutual Benefit Association (SAMBA) health plan is warning almost 14,000 people in relation to a February 2018 protected health information breach. The data breach targeted eligible family members of clients who were covered by the Federal Employees...
The Arc of Erie County New York (The Arc), a supplierer of person-centered services to people with developmental disabilities, has found that two spreadsheets holding the protected health information of 3,751 patients were accessible on the Internet with no...
Law enforcement agencies have notified Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) that the protected health information of some of its subscibers has been obtained by an unauthorized individual. Everett Massachusetts Police Department alerted, on January 31, 2018, CHA that data...
