HIPAA News

Walgreens started notifying customers regarding the potential access of some of their protected health information (PHI) by other people because of an error in the Walgreens mobile app particularly its personal secure messaging feature. The […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The results revealed that technology control flaws in the NIH electronic medical records […]

Connectria has unveiled the release of a carbon-neutral ‘green cloud’ in its North America and European Union data centers. The brand-new green cloud is being offered to businesses using IBM i and VMware systems. Connectria […]

There are several healthcare organizations that recently reported phishing attacks namely Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance, Jefferson Dental Care Healthcare Management, and Munson Healthcare. Phishing Attack on Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance Tennessee Orthopaedic Alliance (TOA) found out that […]

BST & Co. CPAs LLC based in Albany, NY was attacked by a Maze ransomware gang and impacted the patients of Community Care Physicians P.C., a New York medical group. A Maze ransomware gang is […]

In January, there are more than one healthcare data breaches involving at least 500 records per day reported to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. According to the 2019 Healthcare […]

The HHS’ Office for Civil Rights persistently enforced HIPAA compliance at the same level as the last three years. In 2019, 10 HIPAA enforcement actions resulted in the issuance of financial penalties. There were 2 […]

According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights breach portal statistics, 2019 saw a 196% increase in healthcare data breaches from 2018. There were 510 healthcare data breaches involving 500 […]

A phishing attack on Overlake Medical Center & Clinics based in Bellevue, WA in December 2019 resulted in the potential compromise of some personal and protected health information (PHI) of 109,000 patients. Overlake Medical Center […]

Xhibit Telemetry Receiver Vulnerable to Critical BlueKeep Windows Vulnerability The Xhibit Telemetry Receiver (XTR) with model number 96280, v1.0.2, including all versions of the currently unsupported Xhibit Arkon (99999) were found to have critical BlueKeep […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted an audit, which revealed that numerous pharmacies and other healthcare companies are incorrectly using the data of Medicare beneficiaries. OIG performed the […]

A phishing attack on Wise Health System in Decatur, TX that happened on March 14, 2019 resulted in the potential compromise of some protected health information (PHI) of 66,934 patients. Wise Health System reported to […]

Ransomware Attack on Central Kansas Orthopedic Group A ransomware attack on Central Kansas Orthopedic Group (CKOG) based in Great Bend, KS in November 2019 resulted in patient file encryption. CKOG discovered the attack on November […]

Stacey Lavette Hendricks, who is a 49-year-old local of Leesburg, FL, pleaded guilty to wire fraudulence and aggravated identity theft. Hendricks was an employee in a medical clinic who was caught impermissibly accessing the protected […]

The 2019 Internet Crime Report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) was just presented. It shows that cybercrime losses in 2019 exceeded $3.5 billion. IC3 received about 1,300 per […]

Hospital Sisters Health System just lately found out that an email security breach occurred in August 2019. Unauthorized persons potentially accessed e-mail messages and attachments that contain the protected health information (PHI) of 16,167 patients. […]

Sunshine Behavioral Health Group based in Portland, OR provides business services to healthcare companies. The group reported a breach of its cloud-based system that stored patient medical records because of an accidental misconfiguration. Patient data […]

The new Ponemon Institute research reveals that the occurrence of cybersecurity incidents due to insiders has gone up by 47% in the last two years. The average yearly global cost due to those cybersecurity incidents […]

The Department of Health and Human Services announced the changes to a final rule of the HIPAA National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) D.0 Telecommunication Standard requiring pharmacies to keep tabs on partly filled […]

The association of private orthopedic surgery professionals, Fondren Orthopedic Group based in Houston and the nearby areas, encountered a cyberattack that impacted some components of its IT system. The substitute breach notice published on Fondren […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights made an announcement  regarding the reversal of the following legislative modifications made to the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule of 2013: Changes to the Genetic […]

In December 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights had two more enforcement actions taken against covered entities that were found to have broken the HIPAA Regulations. The first financial […]

In December 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights received 38 reports of healthcare data breaches involving 500 or more records exposed, which is 8.57% more than the reported healthcare […]

The people behind the Maze ransomware are pushing through with their threats on victims to post stolen data during ransomware attacks when the ransom is not paid. In December, Southwire based in Carrollton, GA declined […]

Pulse Secure customers received an advisory from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to implement the patch for vulnerability CVE-2019-11510 of the 2019 Pulse Secure VPN . Cybercriminals continue to attack unpatched Pulse Secure […]

On January 1, 2020, the implementation of the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) began. CCPA gave state residents more privacy protections and new rights relating to their personal data. Healthcare data that is protected by […]

Healthcare provider InterMed based in Portland, ME is notifying 33,000 patients about the potential compromise of some of their protected health information (PHI) as a result of a phishing attack. InterMed detected the attack on […]

Adventist Health Sonora in California suffered unauthorized access by a person to a hospital associate’s email account causing the likely compromise of patient data. Adventist Health Sonora’s information security team discovered the email account compromise […]

To prevent the exploitation of critical vulnerabilities, Microsoft has released patches for all supported Windows versions that need immediate attention. Although no report of vulnerabilities exploitation has been received, the threat is serious and it […]

A recent survey by Buck revealed that a lot of group health plan sponsors do not fully comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Rules. Buck is a company providing integrated HR and […]

Threat actors nowadays commonly use ransomware for file encryption to prevent data access. In addition, they steal information and threaten the victims that their stolen data will be published or sold if they would not […]

A man from Georgia is charged over a complex plan to frame up a friend for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that did not transpire. Jeffrey Parker, 43 years old, from […]

A phishing attack on Alomere Health in Alexandria, MN resulted in the potential access of the protected health information (PHI) of almost 50,000 patients by unauthorized individuals. After discovering the phishing attack on November 6, […]

A week ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a flash alert cautioning private businesses in the United States regarding the possibility of Maze ransomware attacks. The alert came after several days from the […]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a former employee of an unnamed hospital in New York City pleaded guilty to employing malicious software to acquire the credentials of co-workers, which he afterward misused […]

In 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued 10 financial penalties and one civil monetary penalty. OCR received a total of $12,274,000 for the settlement of HIPAA violation […]

Center for Health Care Services (CHCS) based in San Antonio, TX encountered a cyberattack that resulted in computer systems de-activation during the holiday period. CHCS provides individuals with developmental handicaps, mental health problems, and substance […]

An alert issued by cybersecurity company Emsisoft mentioned the use of a decryptor bug by Ryuk ransomware victims to recover their records. Using this bug in the decryptor application could result in file corruption and […]

Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, which is a pediatric specialty hospital, found out that an ex-employee accessed certain patients’ medical records without having an authorized work reason. The employee’s unauthorized action […]

In November 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) received 33 healthcare data breach reports with 500 or more records, which is 36.5% less than the reported breaches in […]

The Northern District of Alabama filed a lawsuit against DCH Health System in the Western Division of U.S. District Court because of a ransomware attack that happened on October 1, 2019. The ransomware attack forced […]

The second enforcement action was issued by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights as per the HIPAA Right of Access Initiative. Korunda Medical in Florida agreed to resolve potential violations […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft of the discussion of a new bipartisan data privacy bill. The bill concerns the national standards for privacy and security and plans to put limits on […]

LifeLabs located in Toronto, one of the biggest Canadian medical testing and diagnostics companies, submitted a serious data breach report. Hackers possibly viewed the personal and medical information of around 15 million individuals, mostly residents […]

Tidelands Health located in Georgetown, SC, is working 24 / 7 to reestablish its computer systems after discovering malware on its system on December 12, 2019. The malware attack has compelled the healthcare company to […]

Encryption makes data unavailable to unauthorized people, as long as strong encryption is utilized and the private key to decrypt information isn’t compromised. Not all encryption algorithms give a similar protection level. The effectiveness of […]

Truman Medical Centers located in Kansas City, MO, the biggest inpatient and outpatient services provider in the city, learned that an unencrypted laptop computer that contains 114,466 patients’ protected health information (PHI) was stolen from […]

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, the state’s biggest health insurance provider, is currently working to resolve about 200,000 unaddressed vulnerabilities identified on its servers, some of which are over ten years old. In August […]

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center located in Wyoming lately discovered the compromise of patient data because of a phishing attack in April. On or around April 5, 2019, the medical center received notification concerning a potential […]

Sunrise Community Health based in Evans, CO discovered the compromise of several employees’ email accounts because its employees responded to phishing emails. Unauthorized individuals accessed the email accounts from September 11, 2019 to November 22, […]

In June 2016, Banner Health sustained a data breach which resulted in the theft of the protected health information (PHI) of 2.9 million people. Victims of the breach filed a class-action lawsuit in August 2016. […]

Southeastern Minnesota Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery (SEMOMS) made an announcement a ransomware attack that caused the potential exposure of the protected health information (PHI) of about 80,000 patients. The ransomware attack was seen on September […]

Solara Medical Supplies is confronted with a lawsuit involving a data breach in June 2019 resulting in the exposure of the protected health information (PHI) of over 114,000 customers and the potential data theft by […]

Kalispell Regional Healthcare based in Montana is getting sued as a consequence of a phishing attack that made it possible for hackers to get access to the email accounts of employees that have the protected […]

Nebraska Medicine learned that a member of its staff got access to patients’ healthcare data without any authorized work reason for a time period of about three months. Nebraska Medicine uncovered the privacy violation while […]

Loudoun Medical Group, also called the Comprehensive Sleep Care Center (CSCC), had a phishing attack some time on June 19, 2019. The IT department was cautioned regarding a potential email security breach upon detecting suspicious […]

Amazon’s Alexa now features a new healthcare skill that patients may employ in handling their prescription drugs and purchasing prescription refills. At the beginning of this year, Amazon stated that it has made a HIPAA-eligible […]

The 8th HIPAA financial penalty of 2019 has been announced by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Sentara Hospitals has made an agreement to pay a penalty of $2.175 […]

The Anti-Phishing Working Group’s Phishing Activity Trends Report for Q3, 2019 stated that the rate of phishing attacks now is at a rate that is the highest since 2016. In Q3 of 2019, there were […]

Google has affirmed the news of its partnership with one of the biggest U.S. healthcare systems so that it could access a substantial volume of patient information. Google partnered with Ascension, which is the world’s […]

Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York announced a security breach that happened in late July 2019 involving malware installation on some hospital servers. The quick discovery of the incident minimized the problems caused since safety […]

A ransomware attack on Virtual Care Provider Inc. (VCP), a provider of data storage, internet, and email services, cybersecurity, and other IT services in Wisconsin, resulted in the encryption of the healthcare records and other […]

A phishing attack on Choice Cancer Care Treatment Center (CCCT) in May 2019 resulted in the potential access of the protected health information (PHI) of some patients by unauthorized people in May 2019. CCCT is […]

Aegis Medical Group, a physician group in Florida, began informing 9,800 patients regarding the potential access of their protected health information (PHI) by a former employee. Allegedly, that person tried to sell patient data to […]

A phishing attack on Solara Medical Supplies, LLC in Chula Vista, CA, resulted in the potential compromise of the protected health information (PHI) of a lot of its customers. Solara Medical discovered suspicious activity in […]

A misconfigured AWS S3 storage bucket owned by Sunshine Behavioral Health, LLC, a network of drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation centers based in San Juan Capistrano, CA resulted in the compromise of sensitive patient data. […]

Main Street Clinical Associates, PA. located in Durham, NC has notified a number of its patients regarding the potential compromise of some of their protected health information (PHI) because of the stolen devices from its […]

A phishing attack at Salem Health Hospitals & Clinics, Oregon on July 31, 2019 resulted in the access of some employees’ email accounts by an unauthorized person. The healthcare provider detected the breach within a […]

A new survey was done to know the expense connected with healthcare data breaches, the magnitude of the healthcare community attacked, and what proportion of the attacks become successful. The Black Book Market Research performed […]

Utah Valley Eye Center based in Provo, UT sent breach notification letters to patients concerning an unauthorized person that potentially accessed some of their personal information as a result of its scheduling reminder web portal’s […]

A wrong configuration of the billing program of Texas Health Resources caused the impermissible disclosure of the health information of 82,577 of its patients. Texas Health Resources is one of the United States’ major faith-based […]

The HHS updated its HIPAA Security Risk Assessment Tool with a number of new features requested by users to enhance usability. The HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) in cooperation […]

Because a data breach on the Palmetto Health site occurred, Prisma Health Midlands is informing about 19,000 patients and 3,000 employees. Prisma Health – earlier known as Palmetto Health – found out on August 29, […]

TitanHQ, a provider of cloud security, has seen an exceptional increase in quarter three of 2019, having the most bustling quarter for its MSP enterprise all through its 20+ year history. The company grew into […]

Smith’s Food & Drug based in Salt Lake City, OH has reported that around 58,000 patients’ pharmacy records were improperly disposed of. The grocery and drug store chain discovered the improper disposal on August 29, […]

California Governor Gavin Newsom affixed his signature on bill AB-1130 which revises the data breach notification law in California. The latest bill stretches the meaning of personal information impacting the need to issue notifications to […]

The vulnerability CVE-2019-13546 was discovered in the Philips IntelliSpace Perinatal obstetrics data management system. This vulnerability is remotely exploitable by a user of an authorized remote desktop session host application or a person that could […]

Geisinger Health Plan based in Danville, PA found out that some of its members’ protected health information (PHI) was exposed because Magellan NIA, one of its business associates, had a suspected phishing attack. Magellan NIA […]

Kalispell Regional Healthcare in Montana had a security breach last summer and is informing around 129,000 patients about the potential compromise of their protected health information (PHI). Kalispell Regional Healthcare manages Kalispell Regional Medical Center, […]

Monterey Health Center in Milwaukie, OR encountered a ransomware attack, which began on August 12, 2019. Because of the incident, its electronic health records system was encrypted and made patient information inaccessible. With the assistance […]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) and Microsoft launched a new project to create guidance on the development and implementation of an effective patch management strategy. After […]

A new report from Emsisoft, a New Zealand-based cybersecurity company, exposed the magnitude of ransomware usage in cyberattacks in America. 2019’s first 9 months had 621 reports of ransomware attacks on government agencies, healthcare companies, […]

The 2019 Market Guide for Cloud Service Providers to Healthcare Delivery Organizations (HDOs) has been published by Gartner. It includes a study of the healthcare cloud market and points out how the cloud may be […]

A new Proofpoint report provides ideas on the cyber threats that healthcare companies run into and the most prevalent attacks that bring about healthcare data breaches. Proofpoint’s 2019 Healthcare Threat Report reveals the evolving threat […]

Hunt Regional Healthcare based in Texas learned that a May 2018 cyberattack was more extensive than earlier thought. The FBI informed Hunt Regional on May 14, 2019 that an advanced, targeted cyberattack hit its systems […]

The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business introduced a special healthcare-specific professional cybersecurity certificate program. The professional leadership and educational program is the first healthcare targeted cybersecurity certification program to be made […]

Three of DCH Health System’s hospitals in Alabama were forced not to accept new patients other than those in a critical state due to a ransomware attack. The staff in DCH Regional Medical Center in […]

CHI Health in Omaha, NE, a 14-hospital health system, had a ransomware attack, which led to the potential exposure of the protected health information (PHI) of close to 48,000 patients. CHI Health became aware of […]

On behalf of Kaspersky Lab, a B2B International survey recently performed confirmed there is an increase in the average expense of a data breach at the enterprise-level from $1.23 million (2018) to $1.41 million. The […]

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) is informing some patients about the exposure of their protected health information (PHI) because of a phishing-related email security breach at its Southeastern Regional Medical Center, which happened on […]

There has been an increase in the number of business email compromise (BEC) attacks in the United States. According to Symantec, an average of 6,029 businesses received BEC emails in the last 12 months and […]

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights consented to a negotiation with Elite Dental Associates concerning its HIPAA violation case relating to the impermissible disclosure of protected health information (PHI) of […]

Armis Security researchers found 11 vulnerabilities in the Interpeak IPnet TCP/IP Stack, which is a third-party software part utilized in some medical devices and hospital networks. The DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) received […]

North Florida OB-GYN located in Jacksonville, FL found out that hackers acquired access to selected parts of its computer system holding personal and health information of patients and infected the system with a virus that […]

A damaging ransomware attack on Wood Ranch Medical in Simi Valley, CA caused its irreversible shutting down on December 17, 2019. The attack took place on August 10, 2019 and the ransomware corrupted the servers. […]

Sen. Rand Paul, M.D., (R-Kentucky) has announced a new bill that tries to once and for all take away the HIPAA national patient identifier provision considering the privacy problems in using such a system. At […]

Dr. Ulrich Klopfer operated three abortion clinics in Indiana, but the clinics were closed down upon the suspension of his license in 2015. After his passing away on September 3, 2019, his family members discovered […]

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is banned from expending any of its funds for the creation and launch of a national patient identifier, although there was anticipation that the prohibition will eventually […]

Starting October 1, 2019, medical insurance companies and related services must inform the Maryland Insurance Administration (MIA) in case a breach of insureds’ personal data occurs. The change in legislation is applicable to health plans, […]

Philips IntelliVue WLAN firmware had been found to have two vulnerabilities that affected some IntelliVue MP monitors. The vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers to install malicious software that could have an effect on data […]