From HHS’s October cybersecurity newsletter: Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) released a threat brief on the different types of social engineering1 that hackers use to gain access to healthcare information systems and data.2 The threat brief recommended several protective measures to combat social engineering, one of…
Category: HIPAA
Inmediata settles multi-state litigation for $1.14 million; will improve data security and breach notification practices
Indiana Attorney General Rokita led a coalition of 33 attorneys general in a multi-state investigation and litigation against health care clearinghouse Imnediata stemming from a breach disclosed in 2019. Background In January 2019, HHS OCR alerted Inmediata that protected health information (PHI) maintained by Inmediata was available online and had been indexed by search engines….
OCR Presents: How the Security Rule Can Help Defend Against Cyber-Attacks
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will be producing a pre-recorded webinar for HIPAA covered entities and business associates (collectively, “regulated entities”) discussing how the Security Rule can help regulated entities defend against cyber-attacks. The webinar will discuss real world cyber-attack trends from OCR breach reports and investigations and explore how implementation of appropriate…
IOCTA spotlight report on malware-based cyber-attacks published
Following the Internet Organised Crime Assessment (IOCTA) 2023, today Europol published the spotlight report “Cyber Attacks: The Apex of Crime-as-a-Service”. It examines developments in cyber-attacks, discussing new methodologies and threats as observed by Europol’s operational analysts. The report also outlines the types of criminal structures that are behind cyber-attacks, and how these increasingly professionalised groups are exploiting…
HHS Office for Civil Rights Settles with L.A. Care Health Plan Over Potential HIPAA Security Rule Violations
LA Care, the largest publicly operated health plan in the country paid $1,300,000 to settle Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced a settlement of potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Rules with LA Care, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan that…
An inexcusable gap from breach to notification, or an excusable one?
Some state and federal laws provide specific timeframes by which breached entities must provide notice to regulators and to those affected by a data breach. Unfortunately, loopholes abound, as we seen in statutory language such as Minnesota’s breach notification law, where for timing of notification, it says: “The disclosure must be made in the most…