Security Gaps Found in Virginia Medicaid Claims Processing Systems
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released a report of an audit of Virginia Medicaid’s claims processing systems. The audit uncovered several...
View ArticleHIPAA Enforcement Update Provided by OCR’s Iliana Peters
Office for Civil Rights Senior Advisor for HIPAA Compliance and Enforcement, Iliana Peters, has given an update on OCR’s enforcement activities in a recent Health Care Compliance Association...
View ArticleStolen Electromyography Device Contained 836 Patients PHI, says SSM Health
SSM Health has started notifying patients that some of their protected health information was exposed when a portable device was stolen from DePaul Hospital St Louis in Bridgeton, MO. The device...
View ArticleMedical Device Security Testing Only Performed by One in Twenty Hospitals
The security of medical devices has attracted a lot of attention in recent months due to fears of device vulnerabilities being exploited by cybercriminals to cause harm to patients, gain access to...
View ArticleBeacon Health Employee Improperly Accessed 1,200 Patient Records Over 3 Year...
A former Beacon Health System employee has been discovered to have accessed the medical records of approximately 1,200 patients without authorization over a period of three years. The privacy breach...
View ArticleChildren’s Mercy Hospital Discovers Unauthorized Website Exposed 5,500...
A website created by a physician at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO has recently been discovered to lack appropriate security protections, potentially allowing the protected health...
View ArticleMolina Healthcare Patient Portal Discovered to Have Exposed Patient Data
Earlier this month, security researcher Brian Krebs was alerted to a flaw in a patient portal used by True Health Group that allowed patients’ test results to be viewed by other patients. While...
View ArticleStudy Uncovers More Than 8,000 Security Flaws in Pacemakers from Four Major...
Over the past 12 months, security vulnerabilities in implantable medical devices have attracted considerable attention due to the potential threat to patient safety. Last year, MedSec conducted an...
View ArticlePlastic Surgery Clinic Employee Suspected of Stealing 15,000 Patient Records
A former employee of a Californian plastic surgery clinic is suspected of stealing the medical records of around 15,000 patients. The employee worked at the Rodeo Drive clinic in Beverly Hills run by...
View ArticleRecent Employee Snooping Incidents Highlight Need for Access Controls and Alerts
Ransomware, malware and unaddressed software vulnerabilities threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of PHI, although healthcare organizations should take steps to deal with the threat...
View ArticleMDLive Privacy Lawsuit Voluntarily Dismissed
The MDLive privacy lawsuit filed by law firm Edelson PC on behalf of plaintiff Joan Richards over alleged privacy violations has been voluntarily dropped without any settlement paid. The lawsuit was...
View ArticleNorth Dakota Department of Human Services Notifies 2,452 Medicaid Recipients...
The North Dakota Department of Human Services (NDDHS) is alerting 2,452 Medicaid recipients that some of their protected health information has been exposed when documents were improperly disposed of...
View ArticleData Breach Risk From Out of Date Operating Systems and Web Browsers Quantified
The recent WannaCry ransomware attacks have highlighted the risks from failing to apply patches and update software promptly. BitSight has now published the results of a study that sought to quantify...
View ArticleOCR’s Wall of Shame Under Review by HHS
Since 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has been publishing summaries of healthcare data breaches on its website. The data breach list is commonly referred to...
View ArticleMay’s Healthcare Data Breach Report Shows Some Incidents Took 3 Years to...
The May 2017 healthcare Breach Barometer Report from Protenus shows there was an increase in reported data breaches last month. May was the second worst month of the year to date for healthcare data...
View ArticleTexas Health and Human Services Commission Reports Improper Disposal of 1,800...
A box of paper forms has been discovered to have been improperly disposed of by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission recently announced that...
View ArticleFDA Chief Announces New Plan for Post-Market Regulation of Digital Health...
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., has announced the FDA will be launching a new, risk-based regulatory framework in the fall for overseeing connected medical...
View ArticleGoogle to Remove Personal Medical Information From Its Search Results
There are only a handful of content categories that Google will not display in its search results. Now the list has grown slightly with the addition of personal medical records, specifically, the...
View ArticleHard Drive Theft Sees Data of 1 Million Individuals Exposed
Washington State University (WSU) in Seattle is notifying approximately 1 million people that some of their personal information has been exposed following the theft of a computer hard drive. The hard...
View ArticleWorld’s Largest Data Breach Settlement Agreed by Anthem
The largest data breach settlement in history has recently been agreed by the health insurer Anthem Inc. Anthem experienced the largest healthcare data breach ever reported in 2015, with the...
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