For the third successive month, the number of data breaches reported to the HHS’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has fallen. 46 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records were reported to OCR in February – an 8% fall from January. February saw the lowest number of data breaches in the past 5 months.… Read More »
A woman has been sentenced to serve 15 months in federal prison for her role in a scheme to defraud patients of a Metairie, LA, medical clinic. In 2015, three individuals were arrested in connection with the scheme following an investigation by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office in New Orleans and the U.S. Postal Inspection… Read More »
On March 17, 2022, Dallas, TX-based JDC Healthcare Management, which runs more than 70 Jefferson Dental & Orthodontics practices throughout the state of Texas, reported a security breach to the Office of the Attorney General of Texas that has affected more than 1 million Texans. As previously reported on this site, JDC Healthcare Management detected… Read More »
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced this week that legal action is being taken against Country Medical Services Inc., the former operator of Eastern Ozarks Regional Health System in Cherokee Village, and owners Robert Becht of Hartsville, TN, and Theresa Hanson of Deland, FL, for mishandling the sensitive personal and protected information of thousands of… Read More »
Healthcare hacking incidents have been steadily rising for a number of years. There was a 45% increase in hacking/IT incidents between 2019 and 2020, and in 2021, 66% of breaches of unsecured electronic protected health information were due to hacking and other IT incidents. A large percentage of those breaches could have been prevented if… Read More »
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued a joint cybersecurity advisory warning that Russian state-sponsored actors are exploiting default multi-factor authentication protocols and the PrintNightmare vulnerability to gain access to networks to steal sensitive data. These tactics have been used by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors from… Read More »
Cyberattacks have been reported by Duncan Regional Hospital in Oklahoma and Central Indiana Orthopedics that have affected a total of 170,084 individuals. Duncan Regional Hospital Duncan Regional Hospital has recently announced it was the victim of a cyberattack in January. The incident was detected on January 20, 2022, when suspicious activity was identified in some… Read More »
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced a settlement has been reached with the Cape Canaveral, FL-based healthcare services contractor, Comprehensive Health Services (CHS), to resolve alleged False Claims Act violations. This is the first settlement to be reached under the DOJ Civil Cyber Fraud Initiative, which was launched in 2021. The Civil Cyber… Read More »
2021 was another record-breaking year for healthcare industry data breaches with over 50 million records breached and over 900 data breaches were recorded by databreaches.net. Given the extent to which the healthcare industry is targeted by cyber actors, the risk of a data breach occurring is high. A SecureLink/Ponemon Institute study in 2021 found 44%… Read More »
Capital Region Medical Center (CRMC) in Jefferson City, MO has recently confirmed patient information was accessed by unauthorized individuals in a December 2021 cyberattack that took its network and phone systems offline for several days. The attack was detected on December 17, 2021, when network systems were disrupted. An investigation was launched to determine the… Read More »