Tag: Data Security

March 13, 2017

More than two-thirds of healthcare organizations have employees with compromised email credentials, according to a new study from Evolve IP, a cloud services provider. Of these compromised accounts, 76 percent included actionable password information for sale on the dark web, […]

March 10, 2017

Headlines about hospital data breaches that expose thousands of medical records appear with alarming frequency. Yet even one breach can be devastating. A single breach at a Pennsylvania practice in the first half of 2016 exposed 87,000 patient records, and […]

March 6, 2017

Atlanta-based Emory Healthcare has reported that in January a hacker demanded a ransom after accessing one of the health system’s appointment systems and deleting the appointment information database. The hack affected the records of about 80,000 patients. In a statement […]

March 3, 2017

In the all-out war for data, the healthcare industry is getting hit the hardest. Experian’s fourth annual 2017 Data Breach Industry Forecast states that healthcare organizations will be the most targeted sector for attack, with new and sophisticated attacks emerging. […]

February 24, 2017

According to a new study, 81 percent of U.S. healthcare organizations and 76 percent of global healthcare organizations will increase information security spending in 2017. The “2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Healthcare Edition” from cybersecurity technology and services vendor Thales […]

February 23, 2017

Medical device security is flawed, but the fix isn’t going to happen overnight. And there’s no one entity to blame, according to Dale Nordenberg, executive director of MDISS (Medical Device Innovation, Safety and Security Consortium) But just as there’s no […]

February 14, 2017

Nearly 60 percent of breached patient records in January 2017 were the result of insiders, according to the Protenus Breach Barometer, a monthly snapshot of reported or disclosed breaches impacting the healthcare industry, with data compiled and provided by DataBreaches.net. […]

February 10, 2017

It seems that not a day goes by without the Internet of Things (IoT) making headlines. Reports of security weaknesses in IoT devices are becoming more common. While most of the IoT media coverage focuses on devices for personal use, […]

February 1, 2017

While home on paternity leave taking care of my baby daughter, I’ve had a fair amount of time to think about different issues, which means I think about HIPAA. The fact that my mind turns to HIPAA on my free […]

January 31, 2017

Too many organizations pay only lip service to the practice of encrypting important information, increasing the likelihood that they will suffer a cyber attack. According to a new study from Osterman Research, while email encryption is a “critical” or “very […]

January 26, 2017

A hot topic in healthcare IT discussions these days is the inevitable move of secure data to the cloud, and for good reason. Providing medical care has truly become a consumer market for hospitals and other healthcare institutions. Organizations are […]

January 25, 2017

Despite major IoT attacks last year, and even though most organizations are extremely concerned about getting attacked, the majority are doing nothing to prevent these attacks, according to Arxan’s 2017 Study on Mobile and IoT Application Security Report, independently conducted […]

January 23, 2017

It’s worth remembering that 2016 was dubbed the “year of data security” after 90 percent of healthcare providers suffered data breaches in the previous two years. In particular, the Anthem breach of late 2014 and early 2015 got everyone’s attention […]

January 12, 2017

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning that it has confirmed cybersecurity vulnerabilities in St. Jude Medical’s implantable cardiac devices and its Merlin@home transmitter. The company has acknowledged the vulnerability and this week was making available a software […]

January 9, 2017

Middleware has great potential for mitigating healthcare IT interoperability issues. However, because it mediates network services to applications, middleware can also create major security issues—possibly enough to offset any benefits. A need for healthcare providers to have easy access to […]

December 21, 2016

Far too often I hear healthcare CIOs talk about all of the various electronic devices they have in their organization and how this device proliferation has created a really large risk surface that makes their organization vulnerable to breaches and […]

December 19, 2016

Emerging technology is making an impact on healthcare, with some promising new capabilities appearing on the scene in 2016. Overall, the healthcare industry seems to be ready to absorb new technologies, and because of changes expected because of healthcare reform, […]

December 13, 2016

Medical laboratory giant Quest Diagnostics on Monday announced that its online patient portal had suffered a breach exposing about 34,000 individuals’ records. The Madison, N.J.-based company said it discovered the breach on Nov. 26. The intruder(s) gained access to individuals’ […]

December 12, 2016

When it comes to HIPAA compliance, no stone can be left unturned. The most recent HIPAA settlement announced by the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services continues the trend of using settlement agreements to […]

December 5, 2016

The healthcare industry will be a target for cyber attackers in 2017 while the nefarious practice of holding patient records for ransom will be an industry scourge, according to predictions by credit reporting firm Experian. “Personal medical information remains one […]