The U.S. Vision Inc. subsidiary, USV Optical Inc. has announced unauthorized individuals have gained access to certain servers and systems that contained patients’ protected health information.  The unauthorized access was detected on May 12, 2021, with the subsequent forensic investigation confirming the hackers had access to its systems for almost a month from April 20,… Read More »

There was a 44% month-over-month decrease in the number of reported healthcare data breaches in August 2021. 38 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records were reported by healthcare providers, health plans, and their business associates in August. August’s reported data breaches takes the total number of healthcare data breaches in the past 12… Read More »

Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, CA has announced it has suffered a ransomware attack on August 27, 2021. The attack was conducted by the Vice Society ransomware gang, which gained access to its network and electronic medical record system. Prior to using ransomware to encrypt files, the gang exfiltrated patient data, some of which… Read More »

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) is about to start mailing notification letters to all individuals in the state telling them their personal and health information may have been compromised in a highly sophisticated cyberattack conducted by a nation state threat actor. The cyberattack was detected on May 2, 2021 and the… Read More »

Wilmington, DE-based Simon Eye Management has suffered a breach of its email environment and hackers potentially gained access to the protected health information of 144,373 patients. Simon Eye identified suspicious activity in certain employee email accounts on or around June 8, 2021. Action was immediately taken to secure the accounts and prevent further unauthorized access,… Read More »

Resource Anesthesiology Associates (RAA) of California has started notifying certain patients of Dignity Health’s Mercy Hospital Downtown and Mercy Hospital Southwest that some of their protected health information was stored on a laptop computer that has been stolen. RAA of California provides anesthesiology services at the Dignity Health hospitals, which requires access to patient data.… Read More »

The Department of State Hospitals – Coalinga (DSH-C) in California has notified 1,738 patients that some of their protected health information has been impermissibly disclosed by a DSH-C employee. The United States District Court, Eastern District of California had made a request to be provided with DSH-C patient rosters in order to determine whether patients… Read More »

Austin Cancer Centers is alerting 36,503 patients about a security incident discovered on August 4, 2021 in which some of their protected health information was exposed. Unauthorized individuals were discovered to have gained access to computer systems and installed malware. To prevent further unauthorized access, computer systems were immediately shut down and law enforcement was… Read More »

“Covered Entities” are required to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Covered entities are healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses, which must ensure they are fully compliant with the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Omnibus, and Breach Notification Rules. There is a common misconception that HIPAA only applies to these entities, when… Read More »

Developers of health apps and wearable devices such as fitness trackers that collect health data have been warned by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that they are required to comply with the FTC Health Breach Notification Rule and must notify consumers about data breaches. The FTC Health Breach Notification Rule was introduced in 2009 as… Read More »