From OCR, this alert: It has come to OCR’s attention that an individual posing as an OCR Investigator has contacted HIPAA covered entities in an attempt to obtain protected health information (PHI). The individual identifies themselves on the telephone as an OCR investigator, but does not provide an OCR complaint transaction number or any other…
Category: Health Data
Microsoft works with healthcare organizations to protect from popular ransomware during COVID-19 crisis: Here’s what to do
Microsoft is doing its bit to help hospitals and care facilities to protect themselves from human-operated ransomware attacks. In a blog post published today, they write, in part: While a wide range of adversaries have been known to exploit vulnerabilities in network devices, more and more human-operated ransomware campaigns are seeing the opportunity and are jumping on…
First-Ever CCPA Cause of Action Filed in a Federal Court, but Is This Class Claim Short-Lived?
Cynthia J. Larose and Natalie Prescott of Mintz discuss a lawsuit previously noted on this site: Fuentes v. Sunshine Behavioral Health Group, LLC. The lawsuit followed a data leak of PHI due to a misconfiguration of a database. The leak was first reported by DataBreaches.net who had alerted the entity to their leak. I’m going…
American HomePatient Data Breach Class Action Settlement
Top Class Actions reports: American HomePatient has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve claims that they failed to protect patient data in a burglary incident. The settlement benefits current or former patients and customers of American HomePatient Inc. and Lincare Holdings Inc. whose personal identifying information was stored on the unencrypted hard drives stolen…
Scammers are using the promise of phony COVID-19 test kits to get Tricare recipient personal private info
We know that there is an increase in scamming trying to capitalize on the COVID-19 pandemic. The FBI has issued an alert, the DOJ has taken enforcement action against one company already, and the FDA and FTC have warned companies. Here’s one scam specifically targeting military members who have Tricare health insurance. Howard Altman reports:…
An old HIPAA incident rears its very ugly head again
Like other journalists who cover data breaches in the healthcare space, I routinely check HHS’s public breach disclosure tool (sometimes called “The Wall of Shame”) to see what breaches have been reported to them and with what numbers. One of the recent entries was from a “Stephan C. Dean” who listed himself as a business…