Cybersecurity news for hospitals and health systems

In January, 17 organizations reported to HHS that 906,071 individuals were affected by data breaches.

Tallahassee-based children Medicaid health plan Florida Healthy Kids Corp. began notifying members Jan. 27 of a 7-year data breach that exposed the personal information of hundreds of thousands of  health plan applicants. 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts warned members Jan. 27 about COVID-19 vaccine scams that may be attempting to collect personal health information.

Law enforcement officials on Jan. 27 disrupted the ransomware leak site operated by the Netwalker ransomware gang, which has been responsible for a growing number of attacks on healthcare providers including the University of California San Francisco, according to a…

A patient's guardian is suing Rady Children's Hospital over the 2020 Blackbaud security breach, which affected 19,788 patients of the San Diego-based hospital.

Here are the healthcare provider malware, ransomware and phishing incidents Becker's Hospital Review reported on in January:

President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to appoint three officials from former President Barack Obama's administration to lead the country's cybersecurity division, according to Politico and CyberScoop. 

The Philadelphia Department of Public Health terminated its partnership with Philly Fighting COVID, the organization overseeing its largest COVID-19 vaccination site, after learning the group had become for-profit and altered its data policy to allow potential sales of users' information,…

Tampa Bay (Fla.) Breast Care Specialists took its EHR system offline after a cyberattack exposed patients' personal and medical information, the oncology practice announced Jan. 21.

An IT security incident at Abilene, Texas-based Hendrick Health System exposed hundreds of thousands of patients' information.