Kevin Collier reports: Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers. The hacking campaign, nicknamed Salt Typhoon by Microsoft, is one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history, and it has…
Earlier today, DataBreaches posted an HHS OCR announcement of a settlement with a HIPAA covered entity. A former contractor had accessed its electronic medical record system on three occasions without authorization to retrieve PHI for use in potential fraudulent Medicare claims. OCR imposed a monetary penalty of $1.19 million for the entity’s failure to: conduct…
Adam Janofsky reports: Leading U.S. cybersecurity agencies on Tuesday said that Chinese hackers likely still have access to critical telecommunications systems, and published guidance to help engineers and network defenders identify and remove the threat actors. In a call with reporters, senior officials at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI said…
Jessica Lyons reports: American energy contractor ENGlobal disclosed that access to its IT systems remains limited following a ransomware infection in late November. In a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said it became aware of a cybersecurity incident on November 25 after criminals broke into its networks and locked…
Irvin Jackson reports: Parties involved in the federal Change Healthcare data breach lawsuits have been ordered to meet separately with a U.S. Magistrate Judge over the next two months, to discuss the most effective structure for settlement talks and the optimum timing for when negotiations should begin that may provide payouts to millions of Americans. The potential…
In April 2019, DataBreaches reported that Gulf Coast Pain Consultants, LLC d/b/a Clearway Pain Solutions Institute had recently notified patients after discovering on February 20 that their EMR system had been accessed by a third party without authorization. At the time, they disclosed that 35,000 patients had been affected but they did not indicate that…