Electronic health and medical records (EHRs) enhance the patient experience and improve care coordination, but they can also put patients and providers at risk if they are not protected. Security vulnerabilities can arise from communicating via unsecured channels such as email and can result in data breaches, compromised patient records, and even identity theft. As medical records contain personal information such as social security numbers and insurance ID numbers, they are often even more
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Healthcare Data Breaches
Is Your Health Data More Safe or Vulnerable in the Cloud?
The illusion of control is tempting, even intoxicating. It’s also a common characteristic that almost all humans manifest to one degree or another as we work to satisfy competence motives, the need for security, survival instincts.Because proximity often feels like control, it might also get in the way of secure healthcare IT.“Files stored in reliable cloud services are some of the most secure files you can have, provided you have good passwords,” says software engineer John Miller, PhD.
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7 Things Healthcare Organizations Need to Know About GDPR
Since the arrival of HIPAA more 20 years ago, healthcare organizations and professionals have become painfully aware of the price for not safeguarding private medical information.In fact, more than 171,000 privacy rule complaints have been recorded since 2003, resulting in millions upon millions of fines. Three data breaches in 2013 cost Advocate Health System $5.5 million, while New York Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University paid a combined $4.8 million to settle charges from a 2010
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Survey: Lack of Budget & Time Key Obstacles to Healthcare Data Breach Prevention
According to a recent Netwrix 2017 IT Risks Report, 75% of healthcare organizations indicated lack of budget and time as the main obstacles to taking a more efficient approach towards management of healthcare data breach prevention. Additionally, 44% stated appropriate participation of senior management as another key obstacle.The 2017 IT Risks Report produced by Netwrix Corporation, provider of a visibility platform for data security and risk mitigation in hybrid environments asked IT pros from
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Accenture: 1 in 4 US Consumers Have Had Their Healthcare Data Breached
One in four U.S. consumers (26 percent) have had their healthcare data breached from technology systems, according to new survey from Accenture released at HIMSS17. The survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers reveals that half (50 percent) of those who experienced a breach were victims of medical identity theft and had to pay approximately $2,500 in out-of-pocket costs per incident, on average.“Health systems need to recognize that many patients will suffer personal financial loss from cyberattacks of
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Ransomware Leads the Way in 2017’s Predicted Rise in Health Data Theft
Editor’s Note: Santosh Varughese is the President of Cognetyx, a provider of ‘Ambient Cognitive Cyber Surveillance’ to protect information assets against cyber security threats, data breaches and privacy violations. Welcome to 2017, the writing is on the wall and it didn’t take long to get there. Earlier this month Atlanta’s Emory Healthcare was hacked by the Harak1r1 the 0.2 Bitcoin Ransomware. A database from the facility’s Brain Health Center containing data from more than 200,000 patients
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The Reality of Ransomware Attacks: Are Healthcare Providers Truly Prepared?
HIMSS’ Director of Privacy and Security Lee Kim, explains why now is the time for healthcare to get serious on preperation to tackle ransomware attacks. Healthcare data hacked into and virtually held hostage? It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it’s a true story told repeatedly and increasingly both in the U.S. and abroad. Today, ransomware and cyber-attacks in healthcare are beyond real, and so are the costly consequences. According to HIMSS’ Lee Kim, now is the time to
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Recent Hospital Breach Offers 3 New Lessons Learned for Providers
Editor’s Note: D’Arcy Guerin Gue is a co-founder of Phoenix, with over 25 years of experience in executive leadership, strategic planning, IT services, knowledge leadership, and industry relations — with a special focus on patient engagement and federal compliance issues. She currently serves as the Director of Industry Relations at Phoenix Health Systems, a division of Medsphere SystemsYesterday, the Children’s National Medical Center announced yet another major hospital breach, this one
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Data Breaches: Moving Security Perimeter Back to Server Level
Editor's Note: Jon Senger is the CTO of Vertiscale . He writes frequently on the on the topic of HIPAA compliance and the role of MSPs in healthcare security.The leading cause of data breach incidents in healthcare facilities is lost or stolen end-user devices, including laptops and tablets. Such breaches have led to six figure fines for HIPAA violations in some cases, and with the stepped up enforcement coming in 2016 promised by the Department of Health and Human Services, we can expect to
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Healthcare Data: The New Prized Target for Hackers
Hackers are searching for their new targets and have landed on the health industry. People of all ages are using Mhealth, fitness tracking devices and wearables to improve their health but aren’t realizing that the personal information they share on those platforms aren’t as secure as you’d think.
While many people see high-profile data breaches in the news like The Office of Personnel and Ashley Madison, they still don’t take the appropriate actions to protect themselves. Each generation
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