Because I’m at a conference, it’s been hard to update a lot, but here are a few of the health data breaches I’ve spotted this week: Main Line Endoscopy Centers in Pennsylvania announced that it recently mailed notifications to patients whose personal information was in an employee’s email account a t the time that the…
Category: Health Data
“Team_Orangeworm” issues new threats to CarePartners
Hackers who claimed to have stolen all of a Canadian home healthcare agency’s patient and employee data have issued a deadline and new threat to their victim: either pay us or we will start contacting your patients and giving data to the Ontario privacy commissioner’s office. And to prove their claim that they have sensitive…
Possible data breach being investigated at Galway hospital after patients receive scam letter
Marita Moloney reports: Healthcare group Saolta is investigating a possible data breach at University Hospital Galway. A number of patients had raised concerns after receiving a letter in the post from an organisation calling itself The Anglo American Lottery. The scam letter, which was posted to people’s home address, informs recipients that they have won…
Michigan practice folds after cyberattackers wipe out all their files
On March 29, WWMT in Michigan reported: Hacked and held for ransom by a computer virus, a doctor’s office in Battle Creek was forced to close its doors after, doctors said, they refused to pay and their entire system was wiped out. Dr. William Scalf told Newschannel 3 ransomware locked up the system at Brookside…
HHS security policies should focus on incentives, not penalties, health IT leaders say
Heather Landi reports: The federal government needs to provide more resources and incentives to help healthcare organizations better protect their IT systems and data from cyberattacks, according to health IT security leaders. Currently, the Department of Health and Human Services’ privacy and security standards are too focused on compliance and are unduly punitive to healthcare…
Indian govt agency left details of millions of pregnant women exposed online
Catalin Cimpanu reports: A database managed by an Indian government healthcare agency was left connected to the Internet without a password, where it exposed more than 12.5 million medical records for pregnant women, ZDNet has learned. Records go as far back as five years, to 2014, and include detailed medical information for women who underwent…