Cybersecurity

The digital security of healthcare institutions and data is a growing concern, with an increasing number of cyberattacks each year against healthcare systems, which are seen as easy targets. Cyber attacks often use ransomware to target personal health information, patient data and medical devices to cut off access to the data until a ransom is payed to the hacker. Cybercriminals have become more sophisticated, using malware, ransomware and spyware to attack outdated and vulnerable systems and software. Due to the interconnected nature of hospital IT systems today, the weakest link can be older web-enabled medical devices, including clinical and non-clinical systems. Employees are also a major target of attacks via malicious e-mails that prompt them to open attachments that then download malware onto the hospital's IT system.

5 usability issues in EHRs that may harm patients

While electronic health records (EHRs) have improved the safety and quality of patient health information, the shift from paper to digital interfaces has introduced a new set of barriers that may contribute to patient harm.

April 20, 2018
security-3014154_1920.jpg

Lacking trust in security, privacy reduces patient trust in health IT

Privacy and security concerns are linked to reduced patient access of health records and trust in health information technology (HIT). Findings were published April 11 in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

April 16, 2018

Healthcare cybersecurity claims represent 28% of total breach costs

Healthcare cybersecurity insurance claims in 2017 made up 17 percent of total claims—but accounted for 28 percent of costs related to breaches, roughly $65 million of a total $229 million, according to the 2017 Cyber Claims Study by NetDiligence.

April 9, 2018

Facebook ends project to share data with healthcare orgs, hospitals

Facebook has been in the news lately, having to explain how millions of users' data have been misused. Now it has announced an end to plans to share user data with several major U.S. hospitals and organizations.

April 6, 2018

Social network sites improve communication between patients, providers—but put data at risk

Social network sites (SNSs) facilitate efficient communication between healthcare professionals but are limited in protecting data, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

April 3, 2018

MyFitnessPal app experiences breach of 150M accounts

The popular diet and fitness application MyFitnessPal, purchased by Under Armour in 2015, has experienced a breach of security were 150 million accounts had their data stolen.

March 30, 2018

1 CISO's 5 pillars of an effective cybersecurity program

In a March 8 session at HIMSS 2018 in Las Vegas, Kevin Charest, chief information security officer of the Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), outlined the five pillars of its cybersecurity program.

March 30, 2018
security-3014154_1920.jpg

Keeping employees engaged could reduce data breaches

The healthcare industry has ground to cover in the field of cybersecurity. While health systems are investing time and money in technological solutions, an article in the Harvard Business Review argues the solution lies in the human element of security.

March 29, 2018

Around the web

U.S. health systems are increasingly leveraging digital health to conduct their operations, but how health systems are using digital health in their strategies can vary widely.

When human counselors are unavailable to provide work-based wellness coaching, robots can substitute—as long as the workers are comfortable with emerging technologies and the machines aren’t overly humanlike.

A vendor that supplies EHR software to public health agencies is partnering with a health-tech startup in the cloud-communications space to equip state and local governments for managing their response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Trimed Popup
Trimed Popup