According to the 2022 State of Ransomware Report issued recently by Sophos, it surveyed 5,600 IT professionals from 31 countries, including professionals in the health care sector. Those professionals in the health care sector shared that 66 percent of them had experienced a ransomware attack in 2021, which was an increase of 69 percent over 2020. This was the largest increase of all sectors surveyed.Continue Reading Privacy Tip – Health Care Sector Continues to Be Hit with Ransomware

Health care providers and contractors continue to be a popular target for hackers. Recently, CHSPSC LLC (CHSPSC), which provides various services to hospitals and clinics indirectly owned by Community Health Systems, Inc. of Tennessee, agreed to pay $2,300,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in settlement of potential violations of HIPAA’s Privacy and Security Rules. The OCR investigation and settlement stemmed from a data breach affecting over six million people.
Continue Reading HIPAA Business Associate Pays $2.3 Million Settlement After Hackers Target PHI of Over 6 Million Individuals

On July 25, 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (SHIELD Act) into law. The SHIELD Act modifies the current Breach Notification Law to expand the types of data elements that are considered “private information” and to expand the data breach disclosure requirements for individuals and businesses. Moreover, the law creates a requirement that owners or licensors of private information meet a new “reasonable security requirement.”
Continue Reading SHIELD Act Becomes Law, Expanding Breach Notification and Data Security Requirements

As readers of this blog know, data breaches in the health care industry are all too common. Health care organizations are an attractive target for hackers because of the nature and amount of personal information that they possess.

Therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that healthcare organizations have the highest costs associated with data breaches.