HHS Office for Civil Rights Director Melanie Fontes Rainer on Progress and News at OCR
ERISA Blog | Changes to the HIPAA Privacy Rules A Primer for Self-Insured Group Health Plans
Podcast - Data Privacy and Tracking Technology Compliance
Patient Data and Privacy
2022 DSIR Deeper Dive: OCR’s Right of Access Initiative
HIPAA Tips With Williams Mullen - Telehealth After the Pandemic
Relaxed HIPAA Restrictions For Providers Using Telehealth
Webinar: Investigating and Resolving Sexual Assaults on Campus
The Indiana Attorney General Office (OAG) filed a detailed complaint on December 23, 2024 (Complaint) which arose out of the following patient complaint: The OAG received a consumer complaint stating that the consumer had...more
Last fall at the Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance Through HIPAA Security 2024 conference, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) promised that before year’s end, it would...more
On July 1, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced that Heritage Valley Health System, a provider in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, agreed to pay $950,000 to resolve...more
What do ransomware, Yelp, and website tracking technologies all have in common? They are troubling areas of concern for HIPAA covered entities and business associates, according to one official from the federal Office for...more
Report on Patient Privacy 22, no. 6 (June, 2022) - A report from the HHS Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) found that in early 2022, ransomware groups increasingly turned to legitimate software during...more
CYBERSECURITY - Tulsa, OK Refuses to Pay Ransom to Attackers - The City of Tulsa, Oklahoma, announced on May 9, 2021, that it had been hit with a ransomware attack, but the Mayor is resolute in not paying the demanded...more
CYBERSECURITY - Q3 Coveware Report: Unsettling Update on Ransomware - We spend a lot of time reporting on ransomware because we are seeing more incidents than ever before, and our readers comment that keeping them up to...more
Report on Patient Privacy 20, no. 11 (November 2020) - In her 14-plus years of investigating and blogging about hacking and breaches, “Dissent” has been yelled at, threatened with lawsuits and accused of being a criminal....more
CYBERSECURITY - U.S. Chamber of Commerce and FICO Release Security Guidelines on Telework During COVID-19 - It is no secret that companies are experiencing an increase in security incidents following the transition...more
CYBERSECURITY - OFAC Issues Advisory on Sanctions for Facilitating Ransomware Payments - On October 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued an advisory “to...more
Natural Gas Compressor Facility Shut Down After Ransomware Attack - The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced this week that a ransomware attack shut down a natural gas compressor facility for two days. While in...more
It is being reported that LifeLabs, a Canadian lab company that is the largest provider of laboratory diagnostics and lab testing services in Canada, recently paid an undisclosed ransom to hackers who compromised its computer...more
Report on Patient Privacy Volume 19, Number 11. (November 2019) ? The biggest threat to protected health information comes from carelessness within your organization, according to a brief from the Clearwater...more
The Federal Bureau of Investigations Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) recently issued a public service announcement warning private companies about the increasing numbers of ransomware attacks affecting private industry....more
Although many thought that WannaCry was in the rear view mirror, a recent report by Artemis, based on client experience, found that health care organizations and manufacturing companies are still being hit with the ransomware...more
In its January newsletter, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) focused on cyber extortion, which it stated has “risen steadily over the past couple of years and continue to be a major source of disruption for many...more
Health Care Organizations Saw an 89% Increase in Ransomware in 2017 - Our experience last year is consistent with the conclusion of a new report issued by Cryptonite in its 2017 Health Care Cyber Research Report—that the...more
Our experience last year is consistent with the conclusion of a new report issued by Cryptonite in its 2017 Health Care Cyber Research Report—that the number of hacking events targeted at health care entities involving...more
According to a recent U.S. Government Interagency report, ransomware is the fastest growing malware threat, targeting users of all types. An incredible 51 percent of respondents in a January 2017 study by the Ponemon...more
Unfortunately, September was another banner month for data breaches involving the health care industry. According to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) website, 39 data breaches involving over 500 records were reported to the...more
Every where you look these days, there seems to be another report of a cyber attack--attacks which do not discriminate based on industry type, size of business, or impact. In other words, everyone is vulnerable. In fact, the...more
According to a recent US Government Interagency report, ransomware is the fastest growing malware threat, targeting users of all types, including health care facilities. This past spring, for example, the WannaCry ransomware...more
Following the frequent and varied ransomware attacks on health care entities over the past few years, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published guidance last summer to the health care industry reminding it that a ransomware...more
As has been widely reported, on May 12, 2017, organizations around the world, including Britain’s National Health Service, found their data held hostage by actors using a new variant of ransomware called WannaCry. According...more
In the past several years, a huge increase has occurred in the number of electronic attacks in the United States using ransomware, a form of malware that targets and encrypts critical data and systems for the purpose of...more