Scott Ikeda writes: A cyber attack on London hospitals that has unfolded over the course of June has had a devastating impact on the city’s blood supply, and has caused hundreds of operations to be postponed. New reporting from Bloomberg indicates that the city’s hospitals have long known that Synnovis, the pathology lab at the center of…
Category: Health Data
Red Tape Is Making Hospital Ransomware Attacks Worse
Matt Burgess reports: Crippling ransomware attacks against hospitals and health care providers are on the rise. These ruthless cyberattacks can take medical systems offline for weeks—canceling appointments and surgeries and causing harm to patients. Doctors and nurses are plunged into crisis situations where they resort to using pen and paper, while IT staff work to make…
Za: Critical South African healthcare services hacked
Jan Vermeulen reports: The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) has shut down its IT systems following a breach over the weekend. Its emails, website, and system for retrieving and storing patients’ lab test results are offline. Based on a memo from NHLS chief executive officer Prof Koleka Mlisana, the intrusion caused damage, suggesting the NHLS…
Patients at Ascension hospital network given dangerous doses of narcotics after disastrous cyberattack
Alexa Lardieri reports: A cyberattack on a major American hospital system has caused dangerous medication mix ups including patients administered narcotics by mistake, leading to an admission to intensive care for life-threatening breathing difficulties. In another case, a female patient suffered a cardiac arrest and died after data mishaps delayed test results that would determine her…
Doctor charged for unauthorized access to personal information of pediatric patients at Texas Children’s Hospital
Is the following case an example of insider threat or it is a whistleblower situation — or both? The U.S. Attorney’s Office of Southern Texas issued the following press release on June 17: A Houston doctor has been indicted for obtaining protected individual health information for patients that were not under his care and without…
Ph: Maxicare reports data breach to NPC
ABS-CBN reports: Health maintenance organization (HMO) Maxicare has reported a data breach to the National Privacy Commission (NPC). The NPC said they received a data breach notification on June 16 at 12:49 p.m. In a statement, the Department of Information and Communications Technology – National Computer Emergency Response Team (DICT-NCERT) said they the leak started…