Cybersecurity news for hospitals and health systems

New digital health technologies and increased awareness about public health due to the COVID-19 pandemic may pave the way for a fundamental shift in healthcare data privacy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Falls Church, Va.-based Inova Health System was among the thousands of organizations affected by a cyberattack on Blackbaud, which stores donor information.

A Baton Rouge, La.-based clinic reported a July 8 cyberattack temporarily encrypted thousands of patient records.

Watertown, N.Y.-based Samaritan Health is still recovering from a malware attack that occurred on July 25, and not all of its systems have returned to normal operations.

A Moffitt Cancer Center physician reported two personal electronic storage drives and print outs of clinical schedules that contained information about thousands of patients were stolen from his car.

The Blackbaud security breach affected more than 25,000 nonprofit organizations worldwide, including many health systems in the U.S.

Chinese hackers targeted the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and other schools to steal coronavirus vaccine data, according to The New York Times.

Assured Imaging, a mobile digital mammography provider in Tucson, Ariz., is notifying more than 244,800 patients that their protected health information was exposed after its EHR system was attacked with ransomware. 

HHS' Office for Civil Rights on Sept. 1 updated its previous Health App Developer Portal and changed it to a HIPAA resource page for cloud computing, mobile health apps and application programming interfaces.

Charleston, S.C.-based Roper St. Francis Hospital began notifying 6,000 patients Sept. 3 that their medical records and information had been exposed after a hospital employee's email account was hacked, according to local ABC affiliate WCIV.