HIPAA News Updates

Healthcare Employees in Minnesota Took Legal Action Against Employers to Stop Vaccine Mandate

• Posted on 1st October 2021

A lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Minnesota by 180 healthcare employees concerning the COVID-19 vaccine mandates of their company owners. The plaintiffs, who were anonymous in the lawsuit, assert vaccine mandates violate religious freedom and state…

Healthcare Providers Face Legal and Technological Issues Getting CCPA Compliance

• Posted on 23rd September 2021

Healthcare companies that need to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are having difficulties getting compliance, as per a new study shared in the Health Policy and Technology - DOI: 10.1016/j.hlpt.2021.100543 The CCPA was made into law on…

Looking Back at the 25th Anniversary of HIPAA

• Posted on 27th August 2021

On August 21, 1996, that is 25 years ago, President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) into law. Not many people then would have thought that the HIPAA would develop into the all-inclusive national health privacy…

HIPAA Violation News

UPMC Hacker Sentenced With 7-Year in Prison

• Posted on 22nd October 2021

The hacker responsible for getting access to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) databases and stole the W-2 details and personally identifiable information (PII) of roughly 65,000 UPMC workers has been given the maximum sentence for the offenses and…

St. Joseph’s/Candler Faces Class Action Lawsuit over Ransomware Attack Impacting 1.4 Million Individuals

• Posted on 16th September 2021

St. Joseph’s/Candler Hospital Health System is facing a class-action lawsuit because of a ransomware attack that took place on June 17, 2021. Because of the attack, files were encrypted, which forced the hospital to take its IT systems off the…

UPMC Pays $2.65 Million to Settle Employee Data Breach Lawsuit

• Posted on 29th July 2021

UPMC has suggested a $2.65 million settlement to close a data breach case filed by workers affected by a data breach in February 2014. UPMC based in Pittsburg, PA submitted a report about the data breach in February 2021 and…

Healthcare Cybersecurity News

Medtronic MiniMed Remote Controllers Recalled Due to Major Cybersecurity Issue

• Posted on 8th October 2021

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given a notification to end-users of Medtronic wireless insulin pumps concerning a critical security vulnerability impacting a number of remote controllers. MiniMed insulin pumps are employed to deliver insulin to help control diabetes.…

CISA Revises List of Cybersecurity Bad Practices to Remove

• Posted on 8th September 2021

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has modified its checklist of cybersecurity bad practices that need to be eliminated. Cyber threat actors usually perform highly sophisticated attacks to obtain access to internal sites and sensitive records, yet in many…

Cyberattack Forces Memorial Health System to Move Patients to Alternative Hospitals

• Posted on 19th August 2021

Memorial Health System located in Marietta, OH was pressured to redirect emergency care because of an alleged ransomware attack. When the cyberattack happened, the health network was compelled to de-activate IT systems to restrict the attack. Emergency practices were executed…

Healthcare Data Security News

Premier Patient Health Care and Oregon Eye Specialists Submits Data Breach Report

• Posted on 14th October 2021

Premier Patient Health Care located in Carrollton, TX has learned that an unauthorized individual had acquired the protected health information (PHI) of 37,636 patients during an insider data breach. Premier Patient Health Care is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) that…

Email Account Breaches Reported by Wisconsin Institute of Urology and Prestera Center

• Posted on 6th August 2021

Prestera Mental Health Center located in West Virginia began informing 2,152 individuals regarding a security breach affecting employee email accounts. On or approximately April 1, 2021, Prestera Center discovered that selected worker email accounts were accessed without authorization between August…

45,000 Patients Potentially Affected by Cyberattack on Florida Heart Associates

• Posted on 15th July 2021

Florida Heart Associates is informing 45,148 patients regarding one recent security breach that resulted in the compromise of their personal data and protected health information (PHI). The security breach was discovered some time in May 19, 2021, because of strange…