HIPAA News

The former employees of Hair Free Forever and Muir Medical Group stole the protected health information (PHI) of patients and gave it to other employers. The patients were informed by the covered organizations concerning the […]

Dignity Health submitted multiple data breach reports and HIPAA violations to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The reports included an unauthorized access to the PHI of patients, access […]

In the latest Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit as mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act, the data revealed that patients find it hard to obtain copies of their medical information mainly because of high […]

In April, Purdue University’s security group identified two security breaches which likely granted unauthorized people access to the protected health information (PHI) of patients. A data file on Purdue Univesity Pharmacy’s computers suggests that an […]

April was a terrible month as the healthcare sector suffered from an increased number of data breaches and the persons impacted compared to March. The Department of Health and Human Services acquired 41 submissions of […]

Lincare Inc, a respiratory therapy vendor, consented to pay $875,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit that its employees filed for a breach of their W-2 details. The data breach happened on February 3, 2017 when […]

A segment of Allied Physicians Group of Michiana’s network system was down due to a ransomware attack. This episode occurred on May 17, 2018. The attacker encrypted a number of data files stored on the […]

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in general is applicable to European Union residents in the EU. However how does the GDPR affect EU citizen when he leaves his country and reside in the US […]

There are numerous benefits to utilizing the cloud. A growing number of healthcare companies are using the cloud for their IT needs like migrating programs, infrastructure and datacenter functions. Even so, a big concern is […]

UnityPoint Health identified a data breach on February 15, 2018 which led to the compromise of 16,429 patients’ protected health information. It seems that the data breach happened as a result of the failure of […]

People ask a lot of questions about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is going to be enforced on May 25, 2018. Employees ask how the GDPR apply to their personal data. The GDPR […]

The Department of Justice (DOJ) does not pursue many criminal penalties for HIPAA violations. But in cases of serious patient privacy violation, such as when the protected health information (PHI) is impermissibly disclosed with malicious […]

A former employee of Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) got hold of the protected health information of about 100 patients after being terminated from work. She had collected personal items from her old […]

Many people talk about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) nowadays with its pending enforcement on May 25, 2018. Since the GDPR is an EU law, does it only impact organizations located within the EU? […]

MEDantex, a transcription service provider, accidentally left patient medical records unsecured and freely accessible to anyone without the need of a password.  The error in restricting access to a physician’s portal resulted in the exposure […]

For the first quarter of 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received 77 reports of healthcare data breaches. Over one million patients and health plan members were affected […]

According to Symantec, there’s a recently identified threat group called Orangeworm, which is launching targeted attacks on big healthcare companies in the United States. Orangeworm was first discovered in January 2015. It has been doing […]

The protected health information of 1,071 patients who received medical services at the Des Moines Crisis Observation Center was “accidentally and unknowingly disseminated” for a period of three and a half years. The Crisis Observation […]

The updated version of the Cybersecurity Framework was made available by the National Institute of Standards and Technology this April 16, 2018. This framework for improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity was issued initially on February 2014. […]

The number of healthcare data breaches increased month-over-month. In March 2018, HIPAA covered entities reported 29 security breaches. February 2018 had 25 breach incidents. Though the number of reported data breaches increased in March, there […]

UnityPoint Health discovered that unauthorized individuals accessed the email accounts of several employees. It was found that the email accounts were accessed for a period of three months starting from November 1, 2017 up to […]

Inogen is a company that manufactures portable oxygen concentrators. An unauthorized person got the login credentials of one Inogen employee and accessed his email account. The personal information of about 30,000 persons that Inogen provided […]

Baptist Health’s West Kendall Baptist Hospital in Miami, FL discovered that a former employee stole the credit card information of patients then used the details for fraudulent purchases. Baptist Health found out about the misuse […]

The protected health information (PHI) of tens of thousands of Middletown Medical patients was exposed due to a misconfiguration in the security setting of a radiology interface. Middletown Medical, a multi-specialty physician’s group that is […]

A 31-year old former receptionist named Annie Vuong worked at a New York dental practice where she stole the protected health information of over 650 patients. She was sentenced to spend 2 to 6 years […]

Ponemon Institute conducted a survey on behalf of ServiceNow to learn about the issues on patching that healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are struggling with. The study revealed that organizations are not patching vulnerabilities promptly hence […]

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office financially penalized Virtua Medical Group for its failure in protecting the privacy of over 1,650 patients. The protected health information of the patients was exposed because of a misconfigured […]

Finally, Alabama has a law requiring companies to issue notifications to residents whose personal information has been exposed or compromised because of a data breach. On March 28, 2018, Governor Kay Ivey signed the data […]

Law enforcement discovered that the protected health information (PHI) of some Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) patients fell into the hands of an unauthorized person. Everett Massachusetts Police Department notified CHA on January 31, 2018 about […]

Almost all states in the U.S. have their own data breach notification legislation. Now, there are new federal regulations being proposed that could render state level laws obsolete. The Data Acquisition and Technology Accountability and […]

All 48 U.S. states are already implementing a Breach Notification Law that requires individuals and companies storing personal information to send a notification letter to individuals when a data breach occurs. South Dakota is one […]

Owen Graduate School of Management researcher Dr. Sung Choi conducted a study on the effects of data breaches in hospitals. The results indicated a rise in mortality rates at breached hospitals due to a drop […]

Based on the Post and Courier report, 13 Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) employees were terminated last year because of snooping on patient records, which is a violation of HIPAA Rules. MUSC had a […]

TitanHQ released SpamTitan v7.00, which is the new version of its cloud-based anti spam service. SpamTitan v7.00 has updated features that can protect users more effectively from malicious emails and known threats. It also includes […]

The protected health information of some patients and payment guarantors were compromised because the unencrypted laptop computer that Clinical Pathology Laboratories Southeast Inc (CPLSE) issued to an employee was stolen. CPLSE took immediate action so […]

The protected health information of over 35,000 patients at ATI Physical Therapy was potentially accessed by unauthorized persons due to a phishing attack on some employees’ email accounts. ATI discovered the security breach on January […]

RoxSan Pharmacy based in Beverly Hills, CA mailed breach notification letters last month to 1,049 patients. The patients’ protected health information was disclosed to a business associate through unencrypted email on January 20, 2015. The […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released its review findings on HHS’ compliance with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) of 2014. OIG noted the improvements HHS made to […]

Malicious persons accessed the email accounts of four employees working in Primary Health Care Inc., which is a non-profit network of community health centers in Des Moines, Marshalltown and Ames, IA. The unauthorized persons may […]

QuadMed, a medical, fitness, physical therapy, laboratory and pharmacy services provider based in Wisconsin, sent notification letters by mail to 9,854 patients informing them that their PHI was potentially viewed without authorization during a privacy […]

BJC Healthcare, a non-profit healthcare system, runs two nationally recognized hospitals in St. Louis, Missouri namely St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital plus 13 other hospitals. It has over 31,000 employees, admits more than […]

Department of Health and Human Services’ (HSS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Director Roger Severino gave some hints on the likely changes affecting the HIPAA in 2018. Because the Trump administration lobbied for a decrease […]

The Alabama Senate unanimously passed the Alabama Data Breach Notification Act (Senate Bill 318) last February 2017, so now the bill is in the hands of the House of Representatives. Alabama and South Dakota are […]

Two separate incidents of email-related data breaches were recently reported to OCR. The covered entities involved were Flexible Benefit Service Corportation (Flex) and Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS). The protected health information […]

The IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Report mentioned that 71% of healthcare data breaches are because of employee actions. There are two types of employee-related data breaches. Malicious insiders comprise 25% of healthcare data breaches and […]

The Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects was supposed to take effect on January 19, 2018. But its implementation was delayed by 6 months. Compliance date was changed to July 19, 2018. The […]

PhishMe is the top provider of human phishing defense solutions that started its operations in 2007. It recently announced its change in branding beginning February 26, 2018 as it was acquired by a private equity […]

St. Peter’s Surgery & Endoscopy Center in New York was attacked by malware that resulted to giving hackers access to the healthcare data of about 135,000 patients. This is the second largest healthcare data breach […]

Tufts Health Plan had a data breach that exposed the health plan member ID numbers of 70,320 members. The mailing vendor of Tufts Health Plan sent Preferred ID cards to Tufts Medicare Advantage members from […]

The Protenus Healthcare Breach Barometer report recently published that about 473,807 patient medical records were exposed or stolen in January 2018. That figure is not yet final as 11 of the 37 breaches have yet […]

Health Net California, a benefit-provider for federal employees, has been tagged as unwilling to submit to a recent security audit according to the Flash Audit Alert issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) […]

An online attack on the medical records of White and Bright Family Dental patients was uncovered on January 30, 2018. Hackers were able to access one of the servers of the dental practice which is […]

The legal firm Salem and Green, a business associate of Sutter Health, had a phishing attack resulting in exposure of the protected health information of certain patients. A staff of Salem and Green received a […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights published in its January 2018 Cybersecurity Newsletter the increased extortion attempts on healthcare organizations in the past two years. Ransomware attacks encrypt electronic health […]

A privacy breach occurred in the Puerto Rico Health Plan Triple-S Advantage, which affected 36,000 plan members. The cause of the breach was a mailing error that disclosed the plan members’ sensitive information to incorrect […]

The banking Trojan Ursnif was typically used for attacking financial institutions. But the malware is now used to attack different organizations including those in the healthcare industry. The researchers at the security firm Barkly detected […]

According to Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), there are five current cybersecurity threats that healthcare organizations need to watch out for to prevent unauthorized access to their networks and protected health information. The […]

A Florida Veterans Affairs Medical Center set up a Wi-Fi network without coordinating with the VA’s Office of Information & Technology (OI&T). The result of such action was the introduction of vulnerabilities that could lead […]

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office presented a new tool for reporting online data breach. The objective of this tool is to assist breached entities in quickly submitting breach notices. As demanded by the Massachusetts data […]

Ron’s Pharmacy Services in San Diego, CA discovered that an email account containing limited protected health information of 6,781 patients was compromised. The pharmacy noticed on October 3, 2017 the suspicious activity on an employee’s […]

The states of South Dakota and Alabama currently do not have breach notification laws. However, the scenario will be different for South Dakota soon if their State Legislature approves proposed bill SB 62 passed by […]

Partners HealthCare System recently notified 2,600 patients that their protected health information was compromised. The breach incident was discovered in May 2017. Under HIPAA Rules, Partners HealthCare should have notified OCR and the victims up […]

Press America, Inc is a mail service used by CVS Pharmacy. Because of an accidental disclosure of 41 individual’s protected health information, CVS Pharmacy sued Press America, Inc. CVS Pharmacy works as a business associate […]

AllScripts was attacked by ransomware last week resulting in the unavailability of their services. Thousands of healthcare providers cannot access patient data or the e-prescription service. AllScripts now faces a class action lawsuit filed by […]

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and state Representative Jason Saine introduced the Act to Strengthen Identity Theft Protections on January 8, 2018. The introduction of this new data breach notification bill was a response […]

660 patients of Eastern Maine Medical Center were notified of a potential exposure of their protected health information. The portable hard drive that contained the sensitive information disappeared from its State Street facility in Bangor, […]

The Kansas Attorney General fined Pearlie Mae’s Compassion and Care LLC in Topeka, Kansas together with its owners for its failure to protect patient and employee records. The civil monetary penalty amounted to $8,750. According […]

Aetna recently settled a class action lawsuit paying $17.2 million for a data breach last July. The breach involved sending letters to members when details of HIV medications became visible through the plastic windows of […]

This article compares the largest healthcare data breaches from 2015 to 2017. The past two years were record-breaking with respect to healthcare data breaches. What about 2017? The healthcare industry had a bad year on […]

CIOX Health is a medical record retrieval company that is suing the Department of Health and Human Services. The lawsuit concerns the restriction placed by HIPAA laws on the amount that providers can charge patients […]

A ransomware attack on Allscripts happened on January 18, 2018, which is the reason why a number of the firm’s applications, such as the cloud EHR and the electronic prescriptions platform, went offline. The attack […]

Aetna agreed to pay $17,161,200 to settle a class action lawsuit filed by complainants of a mailing error that disclosed sensitive information. The envelopes used had clear plastic windows through which the details of HIV […]

Hancock Health in Indiana, Greenfield had a ransomware attack that forced hospital staff to use pen and paper to manually record patient health information. The hospital’s IT department tried to block the ransomware attack and […]

The Coplin Health Systems based in West Virginia had a potential PHI breach impacting 43,000 patients. The cause of the breach is an unencrypted laptop computer stolen from an employee’s vehicle. Coplin Health knew about […]

The computer network of Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences (OSUCHS) was accessed by an unauthorized individual resulting in the potential exposure of the billing information of Medicaid patients. OSUCHS discovered the security breach […]

Longs Peak Family Practice (LPFP) in Longmont, Colorado was attacked by ransomware. The hacker gained access to the systems of this family and sports medicine practice and encrypted some parts of its network. LPFP identified […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) found data security inadequacies upon auditing the North Carolina State Medicaid agency. According to the report, the State agency did not implement enough […]

NewSky Security researchers discovered a misconfiguration in over a thousand Lexmark printers that are accessible over the Internet. These are printers used by universities, businesses and the U.S. government. The misconfiguration is allowing unauthorized individuals […]

A guide published by the American Health Management Association (AHIMA) aims to help healthcare organizations create a comprehensive cybersecurity plan. It is necessary for healthcare organizations to develop and maintain an organization-wide framework that manages […]

Anti-malware firm Malwarebytes released a new report covering ransomware attacks up to the end of November 2017. Ransomware attacks increased by 62%, because criminal gangs and cybercriminals use them to make money quickly. Since September […]

A scrub nurse was fired for violating the HIPAA Rules. Allegedly, a scrub nurse photographed the genitals of an employee–patient undergoing incision hernia surgery at Washington Hospital. She used her mobile phone to take photos […]

Wager Evans Dental in Reno, NV had to deal with a ransomware attack that kept them from accessing dental records and images for five days. The ransomware attack happened on October 30, 2017. A report […]

Protenus just released the November healthcare data breach report and it revealed a decrease in the number of reported healthcare data breaches and the number of patient records exposed for this month. November only had […]

Austin Manual Therapy (AMT) notified 1,750 of its patients of a potential breach of their protected health information. Allegedly, a criminal attacker accessed AMT’s computer system and may have stolen their PHI. A leading national […]

Two HIPAA-covered entities announced the exposure of patients’ protected health information. The first is Washington Health System Greene in Waynesburg, PA. The other one is Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, TX. The protected health information […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and state attorneys general continued to aggressively pursue financial settlements for HIPAA Rules violations in 2017. For the 9 HIPAA settlements and one […]

21st Century Oncology agreed to pay the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) a settlement fee to resolve its HIPAA violations which was discovered when a 2015 PHI breach involving […]

The American Medical Association (AMA) and Accenture surveyed 1,300 physicians in the United States to know what physicians think about cybersecurity. Based on the responses, it seems sure that cyberattacks will happen. What’s uncertain is […]

Thieves stole a computer used by UNC Dermatology & Skin Cancer Center in Chapel Hill, NC on October 8, 2017. The stolen computer’s database contained the protected health information of about 24,000 patients who visited […]

The Oklahoma Department of Human Services had a data breach in April 2016. After discovering the breach, Oklahoma DHS notified the people impacted by the breach and the DHS’ Office of Inspector General, but not […]

A ransomware attack encrypted the protected health information of patients in the New Jersey-based Hackensack Sleep and Pulmonary Center. This incident took place on September 24, 2017 but it was only discovered the next day. […]

There’s a proposed bill called the Data Security and Breach Notification Act that the Senate will vote on. The purpose of the bill is to standardize the requirements of breach notification across all states. Right […]

A clinic worker gets 5-year jail term for stealing the protected health information of Kirkbride Center’s mentally ill patients and selling them to identity thieves. Jean Baptiste Alvarez, age 43, a resident of Aldan, Philadelphia […]

A PHI breach occurred at the Henry Ford Health System based in Detroit which impacted about 18,500 patients. The organization became aware of the breach on October 3, 2017. According to the report, the email […]

Lincare Holdings Inc., one company supplying home respiratory therapy products, had a breach of employee personal data in February 2017. According to the report, an HR department employee emailed the W2 forms of thousands of […]

Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital settled a case with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights earlier this year. The 2014 case involved alleged HIPAA violations over an impermissible disclosure of […]

Hackers attacked the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield database in 2014 and accessed the protected health information of 1.1 million members. The information exposed included names, birth dates, email addresses and subscriber ID numbers. Following the breach, […]

The law firm Bryan Cave, LLP reported an increase in class-action data breach lawsuits faced by the healthcare industry last 2016. This doesn’t mean, however, that the litigation following a breach also increased. Bryan Cave […]

Patients of Otolaryngology Associates of Central Jersey have been notified of a breach involving their protected health information. Burglars broke in an off-site storage facility of the organization and stole 13 boxes of paper medical […]

A ransomware attack on the Ottawa-based East Central Kansas Area Agency on Aging (ECKAAA) resulted in the file encryption of 8,750 patient’s protected health information (PHI). ECKAAA discovered the attack that happened on September 5, […]