Category Archives: health care data

81% Major Hospitals & Health Insurers Had a Data Breach Since 2013. 50% Prepared for Data Security Threats.

KPMG reports on data security on health care, and here’s what they found:

  • 81% of major hospitals and insurers have had a data breach in the past 2 years
  • 50% of hospitals and insurrers are prepared to stop data breaches.
  • 66% of execs at health plans said they were prepared for a data security attack
  • 13% say they are targeted by external hack attempts about once a day
  • 12 % see 2+ attacks per week
  • 16% of healthcare organizations cannot detect in real-time if their systems are…

Regulatory Trend: Health Care Data Breach

A health care company experiences a data breach, what’s the regulatory and legal landscape?

  • Civil lawsuits that lead to Class Action lawsuits, check.
  • Penalties imposed by a regulatory agency, check.
    • Health and Human Services reached a $750,000 settlement with Cancer Care Group over a data breach involving HIPPA records. 

What can we learn from this incident?

  • health care companies should  conduct risk analysis of tinformation security policies
  • health care companies should have a…

Lege Trend: Peach Blossom State Passes Package of Data Security Bills: Internet Providers. Education. Employers. Healthcare.

Delaware this year enacted a package of data security bills, including:

North Texas Congressman Front & Center on Cyber Security Legislation

In the political hot spot that is Denton County, Congressman Burgess noted the importance of bringing all stakeholders together on data security legislation by saying,

“I wanted to take an opportunity to hear from people who are working in the research area and the private sector and pull everyone together in a room for the morning and hear what the state of the industry is, and where they thought we might do things to improve it,” said Burgess, R-Lewisville.

Denton Record Chronicle

Which Univeristy Health System is Sued over a Data Breach? Hello class action.

UCLA finds itself facing a class action lawsuit over a data breach at hospitals in the UCLA hospital system.

So how does a state university system get sued?

  • UCLA is accused of  not encrypting patient data invcuding:
    • names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, health plan identification numbers, and medical information including patient procedures and diagnoses
  • UCLA allegedly did not notify patientsin a timely manner
  • UCLA’s lack of action allegedly violated multiple consumer…

Hacking Medical Devices. Federal Regulators Issue Warning.

Medical devices are interconnected. It creates better health care delivery and creates access points for hackers.

Federal regulators issued a warning that a pump used to deliver medicine to patients, the Symbiq Infusion System from medical device-maker Hospira, can be hacked by if access is gained to a hospital’s computer network.

Not the first time medical devices and hacking have ended up in the same sentence:

  •  In 2011 it was shown that insulin pumps can be hacked. 
  • In May , a…

Experian's Top 6 Data Security Trends- Credit Cards, Clouds, Health Care…

  1. Credit card breaches will rise over the next few months as hackers try to beat the October deadline set by Visa and MasterCard for merchants to accept only the new generation of credit cards that are embedded with computer chips.
  2. Hackers increasingly will target data stored in the cloud. “Hackers are eager to capitalize on the value of consumer online credentials,” according to the report.
  3. Expect more breaches of health care data. One reason: the growing number of access points to…