The healthcare and public health (HPH) sector has been warned about the risk of cyberattacks by a pro-Russian hacktivist group dubbed KillNet, following a recent attack on a U.S. healthcare organization. KillNet is believed to have started operating around the time that Russia invaded Ukraine, between January and March 2022. Since then, the hacktivist group has… Read More »
Discussing HIPAA compliance for hospitals in a single article is challenging. Not only is there so much to cover, but there are also many different types and sizes of hospitals. This means there is no one-size-fits-all guide to HIPAA compliance for hospitals, but rather checklists that can help hospitals cover the basics of the compliance… Read More »
Morley Companies has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of individuals affected by a major data breach that occurred on or around August 1, 2022. A fund of $4.3 million has been created to cover claims from individuals affected by the data breach. On or around August 1, 2021, Morley Companies,… Read More »
Generally, HIPAA compliance for nurses is considered to mean adhering to policies and procedures developed by an organization’s HIPAA Privacy Officer and applying the best practices of security awareness training provided by an organization’s HIPAA Security Officer. However, sometimes it is necessary to do more than provide basic training to help nurses work compliantly. Under… Read More »
A round-up of data breaches that have recently been reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights and state attorneys general. Blue Shield of California Blue Shield of California has started notifying certain health plan members about a privacy violation by one of its employees. A spreadsheet containing plan members’ names, phone numbers, email addresses,… Read More »
It has been another bad year for healthcare data breaches, with some of the biggest HIPAA breaches of 2022 resulting in the impermissible disclosure of well over a million records. While it does not currently look like last year’s record of 714 data breaches of 500+ records will be exceeded this year, with 674 data… Read More »
The text of a $1.7 trillion omnibus appropriations bill has been released by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees which, if passed, will ensure that the government remains funded until September 30, 2023. The Senate has already started debating the bill and the House is due to consider the bill this week. The bill must… Read More »
November was a relatively quiet month for healthcare data breaches with 31% fewer breaches reported than the previous month. November’s total of 49 breaches of 500 or more records was also well below the 12-month average of 58 breaches a month. 643 healthcare data breaches have been reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights so… Read More »
Work Health Solutions, a San Jose, CA-based occupational health services provider, has confirmed that the protected health information of 13,157 individuals has been exposed and potentially obtained by unauthorized individuals who had access to an employee email account between February 16, 2-022 and March 24, 2022. Following an investigation by third-party cybersecurity professionals, Work Health… Read More »
Citrix Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Citrix Gateway users have been urged to check to make sure that their systems are not vulnerable to a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability, which is being actively exploited by a highly capable Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) actor and potentially other state-sponsored hacking groups. Citrix ADC is… Read More »