Fat Niebres reports: The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has called for stronger safeguards to protect patient data, saying laws must be in place to prevent security breaches and the use of health data to boost private profits. In a new position paper, the AMA pointed out the need for a broader national discussion on health…
Category: Health Data
Daylong 988 Suicide Line Outage Was Caused By Cyberattack
Amanda Seitz of AP reported: A cyberattack caused a nearly daylong outage of the nation’s new 988 mental health helpline late last year, federal officials told The Associated Press Friday. Lawmakers are now calling for the federal agency that oversees the program to prevent future attacks. “On December 1, the voice calling functionality of the 988 Lifeline…
UT: Aspire Surgical notifying patients of data breach
Yet another one you probably hadn’t heard about yet. From a substitute notice on their website dated February 2: UT Specialty Dental Services, PLLC a/k/a Aspire Surgical announced today that it is notifying individuals whose information was involved in a recent cybersecurity incident. On December 7, 2022, Aspire Surgical discovered a cybersecurity incident that impacted…
Bigger than they knew: Diligent Corp. sends more notifications after discovering hacked data on the internet
Diligent Corp is a software as a service company, headquartered in New York. In June, 2022, they disclosed an incident that occurred in May. According to their disclosure at the time, on or around May 21, 2022, an unauthorized actor accessed a network supporting Steele Compliance (a firm acquired by Diligent in February 2021). Diligent…
Heads up: Highmark Health will be notifying 300,000 patients of a phishing incident. Watch for your mail this month.
Highmark Health defines itself as a “national, blended health organization” that includes the Highmark Health Plan (a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurer); a regional hospital and physician network; and companies that offer dental solutions, reinsurance solutions, population health management, and technology solutions. Letters have not gone out yet and will not be going out in…
A Tale of Two Breach Notification Rules
Matt Fisher writes: The early days of February 2023 saw two very different settlements announced related to healthcare data breaches. One arguably follows a well-known course and the other could be a sign of things to come. After having a health breach notification rule on the books since 2009, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) had…