Cybersecurity

Leesburg-based UF Health Central Florida continues to operate offline and with backup procedures such as paper documentation methods following a May 31 cyberattack, according to local NBC affiliate WESH. 

Robocalls are the No. 1 consumer complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission, and robocalls to hospitals are a significant portion of the problem, creating a new type of ransomware attack on hospitals and a threat to public safety.

Massena Hospital, Jones Memorial Hospital and MetroHealth System have been added to the tally of CaptureRx data breach victims. The three hospitals are among 17 hospitals and healthcare organizations targeted by the ransomware attack that exposed patient data. 

As ransomware attacks persist, the federal government is developing recommendations for companies on how to respond to an attack. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency recommended hospitals to follow these seven steps:

The Health Sector Coordinating Council is a network of healthcare organizations that guides policies and strategies for issues facing the industry, such as mitigating data breaches on hospitals. In an open letter to President Joe Biden, the council urged him…

Although paying ransom to hackers is not recommended, some hospitals and health systems have made the tough choice to pay a ransom to restore their networks quicker.

Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma recently began notifying 8,000 patients that their protected health information has been compromised by a security breach on the Lawton-based centers' cloud vendor. 

Since June 2020, 11 organizations reported to HHS that a total of more than 20 million individuals were affected by data breaches.

Five Rivers Health Centers in Dayton, Ohio, recently began notifying 155,748 patients that their protected health information had been exposed for two months due to an email phishing attack. 

More than a month after a ransomware attack hit Scripps Health and disrupted its IT systems for weeks, CEO Chris Van Gorder has penned an op-ed in The San Diego Union-Tribune to detail the events and call on greater collaboration…