cybersecurity

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A Ransomware Epidemic And An Overdue National Health IT Safety Center

Dean Sittig and Hardeep Singh | Health Affairs Blog | July 29, 2016

A rapid increase in computerization of health care organizations (HCOs) around the world has raised their profile as lucrative targets for cyber-criminals. Recently there has been a spate of high-profile ransomware attacks involving hospitals’ electronic health record (EHR) data.Briefly, ransomware attacks commonly start when a user is conned into clicking an internet link or opening a malicious email attachment. Malware, or software that is intended to damage or disable the computer, is then downloaded and rapidly encrypts data on that computer and attempts to reach out to other computers on the same network to encrypt data on those computers as well; consequently, all encrypted data is inaccessible...

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'Privacy Killer' CISPA Is Coming Back, Whether You Like It Or Not

Zack Whittaker | ZDNet | February 8, 2013

Dubbed a "privacy killer" by online activists, love it or hate it, the cyber-security CISPA bill will likely be brought into law—whether it's from the reintroduction of the bill by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, or President Obama issuing (yet another) executive order. Read More »

1.13M Patient Records Breached from January to March 2018

Press Release | Protenus | May 3, 2018

Proprietary, non-public data from Protenus shows disclosed breaches are just one one-thousandth of the actual risk health systems routinely carry...1,129,744 patient records were breached between January and March 2018, according to new data released today in the Protenus Breach Barometer. Published by Protenus, an artificial intelligence platform used by top health systems to analyze every access to patient data inside the electronic health record (EHR), the Breach Barometer is the industry’s definitive source for health data breach reporting. In the first quarter of 2018, the average of at least one data breach per day in healthcare continued to hold true with 110 health data breaches.

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10 Things DoD Wants In Its Next EHR

Staff Writer | Government Health IT | September 2, 2014

Ending months of anticipation, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released its official request for proposals to modernize its Electronic Health Records (EHR) system and enable the DoD to share health data with the private sector and the Department of Veterans Affairs...

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2013 Federal IT Budget Flat at $78.8 Billion

Jill R. Aitoro | Washington Business Journal | February 14, 2012

Three of the major departments to see IT budgets go up included the Treasury Department, HHS and the VA...The 6.9 increase included in the VA's $3.33 billion IT budget will support its Blue Button initiative to provide veterans with a simple way to access and download health records electronically...

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2014 Was Landmark Year For Health Data Breaches

Greg Slabodkin | Health Data Management | December 26, 2014

When it comes to health data breaches, 2014 was a milestone year. Healthcare organizations accounted for about 42 percent of all major data breaches reported this year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center...

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5 Tips For Cybersecurity Incident Response

Rick Kam | Government Health IT | February 2, 2015

Experts and politicians agree that security and privacy incidents are a given...And as the new cyber-risk handbook from the National Association of Corporate Directors puts it: “If a sophisticated attacker targets a company’s systems, they will almost certainly [be breached].”...

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6 remarkable features of the new United Nations open source initiative

The United Nations wants to make technology, software, and intellectual property available to everyone, including developing countries. Open source and free software are great tools to achieve this goal since open source is all about empowering people and global collaboration while protecting the personal data and privacy of users. So, the United Nations and the open source community share the same values. This new open source strategy and policy is developed by the United Nations Technology Innovation Labs (UNTIL). Last month, we had our first in-person meeting in Helsinki in the UNTIL offices. I find this initiative remarkable for several reasons:

7 Reasons Why iPhone Fingerprint Security Might Not Be So Secure

Aliya Sternstein | Nextgov | September 11, 2013

Apple's latest smartphone, the iPhone 5S, contains a sensor for unlocking the device with a tap of the finger, including those belonging to a growing number of federal employees. The Defense Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are just a couple of the agencies that issue personnel iPhones for work. Read More »

9 Healthcare Tech Trends in "The New Year of Uncertainty", Black Book Survey Results

Press Release | Black Book Market Research | December 20, 2016

Black Book’s year end C-suite polls reveal the brakes being pumped on advanced software acquisitions due to political and funding uncertainty that is menacing long term strategies and the willingness to purchase some IT products and services in the first half of the New Year. Policy changes in the wake of a full or partial repeal of Obamacare may create new demands on healthcare enterprises that will likely divert capital and resources toward getting ready for value based care. This uncertainty, as recognized by 9 of 10 hospital leaders surveyed, will at a best decelerate decision-making on planned or ongoing initiatives, and at worst drain IT investment dollars for a protracted period of time, according to Doug Brown, Managing Partner of Black Book...

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A Discussion with David Farber: Bandwith, Cyber Security, and the Obsolesence of the Internet

Andy Oram | O'Reilly Radar | January 30, 2012

David Farber, a veteran of Internet technology and politics, dropped by Cambridge, Mass. today and was gracious enough to grant me some time in between his numerous meetings.

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A Look Ahead at 2016: Top 3 Industry Predictions, According to Nextech

Press Release | Nextech | January 8, 2016

Whether they were highlights or lowlights, healthcare stories dominated the news in 2015. The skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs, expanded medical coverage, the meltdown of blood-testing startup Theranos and the arrest of pharmaceutical industry entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, criticized for raising the price of life-saving drugs, were some of the stories that took center stage. Last year also saw a continuation of themes, including the (surprisingly quiet) transition to ICD-10, ongoing massive data hacks and the threat of cybersecurity, M&A activity, and the impact of consumerism on the industry. With all this in mind, here are the top 3 predictions for the New Year...

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Advocacy Group Calls on Health-Care Industry to Adopt Medical Device Security Principles

Lucian Constantin | IDG News Service | January 19, 2016

Advocacy group I Am the Cavalry is urging organizations that manufacture and distribute medical devices to adopt a cybersecurity version of the Hippocratic Oath. The group, which advocates for better security in life-impacting computers like those used in modern cars, medical devices or critical infrastructure, has published an open letter to the health-care industry, calling for a commitment to five principles when creating, using and maintaining medical devices...

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After Stuxnet: The New Rules Of Cyberwar

Robert L. Mitchell | Computerworld | November 5, 2012

Critical infrastructure providers face off against a rising tide of increasingly sophisticated and potentially destructive attacks emanating from hacktivists, spies and militarized malware. Read More »

Amazon May Be Going Head-to-Head with Microsoft in Healthcare

Mary Jo Foley | ZDNet | July 27, 2017

In the doorway of a low-ceilinged room with harsh strip lighting, Klaid Magi is looking tired. Behind him, the mess suggests this has not been a standard day at the office. The bins are overflowing with empty Coke cans, the desks are covered in snack wrappers, and the room probably smelled a whole lot fresher a few hours earlier. Magi's team, a small band of about two dozen now-weary security experts, wander between the rows of PCs and whiteboards scrawled with notes, gradually recovering from a day spent as the last defense of a tiny nation against a massive cyberattack...

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