From Optum's lawsuit against former employees to class-action lawsuits against UF Health that affected more than 700,000 patients, here are seven recent lawsuits and settlements over data breaches making headlines:
Cybersecurity
Worcester-based UMass Memorial Health began notifying more than 200,000 patients and health plan participants that a hacker breached employee email accounts containing their personal information, according to data the health system shared with HHS on Oct. 15.
Newark, N.J.-based University Hospital began notifying thousands of patients that their protected health information was exposed by a former employee.
Leesburg-based UF Health Central Florida has been sued by a patient after a May cyberattack exposed the data of 700,981 patients, according to a lawsuit filed Oct. 14.
Representatives from more than 30 countries met Oct. 13 and Oct. 14 to coordinate their response to ransomware, which has been devastating to hospitals as they simultaneously battle the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Millburn, N.J.-based Diamond Institute for Infertility & Menopause has agreed to pay nearly $500,000 following a 2017 data breach that exposed the protected health information of more than 14,000 patients, the New Jersey Attorney General's Office said Oct. 12.
Fresno, Calif.-based United Health Centers, which has 21 locations across California, was hit by a ransomware attack that reportedly forced its entire network to shut down and resulted in patients' data being stolen, according to an Oct. 12 Fresno Bee…
Carrollton, Texas-based Premier Patient Healthcare began notifying 37,636 patients that a former executive wrongfully accessed patients' health data, according to data the organization shared with the Maine attorney general's office Oct. 1.
There were more than a hundred active ransomware groups active in 2020, according to an October report by Google Cloud's Virus Total.
Some hackers are adopting a “killware” cyber model, which launches attacks on critical infrastructure with the intent to harm Americans, USA Today reported Oct. 11.