Cybersecurity news for hospitals and health systems

Of January's 116 total data breaches, healthcare accounted for 31 of them, or about 26.7 percent, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center's January data breach report.

Bangor-based Eastern Maine Medical Center began mailing letters Feb. 1 to 660 patients after it failed to locate a portable external computer hard drive containing their personal health information.

Horne, a company Hattiesburg, Miss.-based Forrest General Hospital enlists to provide certain Medicaid reimbursement services, discovered one of its employees had fallen victim to an ongoing phishing attack that may have compromised Forrest's patients' protected health information.

Ransomware, a type of malicious software that holds a victim's files hostage until hackers are paid a ransom, is now recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary, according to The Washington Times.

As more businesses turn to the cloud to host their data, understanding HIPAA and ensuring the selected cloud solution is compliant becomes a necessity, according to CSO Online.

Numerous privacy incidents at health IT suppliers, hospitals and other healthcare organizations captured public attention last month.

Dell Technologies, which currently owns about 80 percent of the cloud computing company VMware, may sell itself to VMware in a reverse merger, according to CNBC.

Ransomware attacks increased tenfold in 2017, according to a Malwarebytes report.

Allscripts restored services Friday, nearly eight days after it was hit with a ransomware attack, company spokeswoman Concetta Rasiarmos confirmed to Becker's Hospital Review.

In the wake of a series of high-profile cyberattacks, Microsoft President Brad Smith is urging tech firms to work with politicians to reassess regulations and set global norms that would police cyberspace, according to CNBC.