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Email hack exposes 45,000 patient's data at Covenant HealthCare
Covenant HealthCare has confirmed that an unauthorized individual gained access to two employees' email accounts, potentially exposing about 45,000 patients' information.
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Pandemic drove uptick in cyberattacks: 3 report findings
Cyberattacks increased significantly in 2020, largely driven by a jump in attempts to extort healthcare organizations and acquire information related to COVID-19, according to a recent Crowdstrike report.
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Fake whistleblower sentenced for framing Georgia hospital employee in HIPAA violation scheme
Jeffrey Parker, who falsely portrayed himself as a whistleblower and framed a Georgia hospital employee of violating HIPAA, was sentenced to six months in federal prison, according to a Feb. 23 Effingham Herald report.
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Illinois hospital reverts to paper records, diverts imaging services after cyberattack
St. Margaret’s Health–Spring Valley (Ill.) has shut down its computer network in response to a cyberattack Feb. 21, Shaw Local News Tribune reports.
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Healthcare data breaches up 55.1% in 2020, report finds
Hospital data breaches increased nationwide in 2020, affecting around 26.4 million people in the U.S., according to a study published Feb. 19 by cloud security platform Bitglass.
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Viewpoint: How to balance data sharing for public good while preserving patient privacy
Technology companies and federal organizations are increasingly collecting users' personal data, spurring calls for more regulation to protect individual privacy. The nation's approach to this regulation must balance privacy concerns alongside the social benefits of greater access to this data, David Deming, PhD, an economist, professor and director of the Malcolm Wiener Center of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass., wrote in a Feb. 19 editorial published in The New York Times.
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Kroger warns of data breach for some pharmacy customers
Kroger confirmed Feb. 19 that some pharmacy customers may be affected by Accellion's data breach, which they employed for third-party file transfers.
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IT vendor pays ransom to recover nearly 30,000 patients' data stolen from California clinic, surgery center
Harvard Eye Associates and Alicia Surgery Center, both in Laguna Hills, Calif., recently began notifying almost 30,000 patients that their protected health information was exposed in a ransomware attack on their IT vendor.
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New Mexico hospital's computer network hacked
Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services recently suffered a cyberattack that let unauthorized actors access its computer network, according to a Feb. 18 statement from the Gallup, N.M.-based hospital.
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Facebook stops collection of user health data after New York investigation
Facebook will no longer collect unauthorized data about people's medical and other sensitive information following recommendations from a New York Department of Financial Services investigation, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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CIS rolls out free ransomware protection service for private hospitals
Private hospitals in the U.S. can access a free ransomware protection service funded by the Center for Internet Security.
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HHS lifts HIPAA penalties in Texas due to winter storm
HHS has waived some HIPAA requirements for Texas healthcare providers to assist in disaster relief after winter storms caused water and power outages across the state.
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Scammers post fake vaccine registration website, pose as Ohio health system
Scammers have developed a vaccine registration site that mimics Kettering (Ohio) Health Network's COVID-19 vaccine scheduling webpage so they can procure patients' personal and banking information, the health system said Feb. 18.
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Email phishing attack at Michigan clinic exposes 2,500 patients' info
Hackley Community Care in Muskegon, Mich., has notified around 2,500 patients that their personal and health information was exposed during a phishing attack on employee email accounts last September.
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State data protection bills gain traction amid pandemic
Lawmakers around the nation have been pushing for state-level internet privacy laws, as life continues to advance online amid the pandemic, reports The Wall Street Journal.
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DOJ indicts hackers suspected of creating WannaCry ransomware: 5 things to know
The U.S. Department of Justice indicted the hackers allegedly behind the creation of WannaCry, a ransomware that hit organizations across the globe in May 2017 including the U.K.'s national healthcare system, according to a Feb. 17 DOJ news release.
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Incomplete fixes for security flaws make hackers' job easy, Google says
Research from Google shows that hackers can quickly find security flaws in previously patched bugs. Maddie Stone, a security researcher at Google, said that bugs are often only partially fixed allowing for previously undetected flaws, known as zero-day vulnerabilities, to be exploited repeatedly, reports MIT Technology Review.
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Hacker infiltrates Iowa medical group's computer system; 34,000 patients' info exposed
Grand River Medical Group is notifying 34,000 patients of a recent hacking incident that allowed an unauthorized individual to access the Dubuque, Iowa-based medical group's computer systems and view their protected health information.
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15,600 patients' health info exposed in ransomware attack on California health center
Grass Valley, Calif.-based Granite Wellness Centers recently began notifying patients that their protected health information may have been exposed in a January ransomware attack on the center's computer systems.
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North Korea tried to hack Pfizer for COVID-19 vaccine data: BBC
South Korea's National Intelligence Service has accused North Korea of attempting to hack into pharmaceutical giant Pfizer's systems to steal COVID-19 vaccine technology, according to a Feb. 16 BBC report.
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