President Joe Biden released his first discretionary funding request to Congress for the fiscal year 2022, outlining major budget increases to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as increases in health technology modernization.
Cybersecurity
Adventist Health Physicians Network, part of Roseville, Calif.-based Adventist Health, was recently fined $40,000 over a 2018 medical record storage and privacy exposure incident, according to an April 9 Ventura County Star report.
An Ohio law firm that specializes in healthcare was the target of a ransomware attack that affected 420,532 individuals.
As the healthcare industry continues to see spikes in data breaches, password security plays a large role in the fight to curb it.
There are 586,869 patients confirmed to be affected by a data breach at Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, according to HHS' data breach portal.
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Counterfeit and stolen vaccine cards have been popping up on online retailer sites like Etsy, Facebook and eBay, according to an April 8 article published by The New York Times.
Total Health Care began notifying 221,454 health plan members and physicians of a hacking incident on its employee email accounts.
Health systems have been increasingly adopting digital systems and tools in the past decade, and the pandemic has greatly expedited this trend. However, health systems aren't always prepared to address the cybersecurity risks these technologies can pose.
At least seven healthcare organizations have confirmed they were affected in the nationwide data breach of file transfer vendor Accellion.
In the last two years, 16 organizations reported to HHS that 118,470 individuals were affected by data breaches where laptops or other portable devices were stolen.