UKG Ransomware Attack Hits Healthcare Businesses Worldwide

Healthcare providers including NYU Langone University Hospital Long Island in New York and others around the world are reeling today in the wake of a reported ransomware attack on human resources services giant UKG. The breach affects services on the Kronos Private Cloud including UKG Workforce Central, UKG TeleStaff, Healthcare Extensions, and Banking Scheduling Solutions. It is unknown if electronic protected health information [...]

2023-07-27T15:41:37-04:00December 13th, 2021|

2.8 Million Patients Affected by 2021 October Healthcare Breaches

October was Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but that didn’t stop healthcare breaches from surging with 2,817,162 patients affected by breaches last month. The vast majority of 2021 October healthcare breaches were hacking incidents targeting healthcare providers. There were a total of 49 healthcare breaches listed on the OCR breach portal in October: Type of entity breached 37 healthcare providers reported incidents (2,261,319 patients, 80.27% of total patients affected) 6 [...]

2023-07-27T16:13:28-04:00November 9th, 2021|

Healthcare Cyber Attacks on the Rise

Several major health systems have reported an onslaught of phishing, spoofing, and ransomware incidents. While these healthcare cyber attacks use different tactics, they all have the same end goal - to steal sensitive patient information.  Phishing Attack Targets UMass Memorial Health UMass Memorial Health recently informed patients that their protected health information (PHI) was potentially compromised in a healthcare cyber attack stemming [...]

2023-07-27T16:17:56-04:00October 27th, 2021|

5.1 Million Patients Affected August 2021 Healthcare Breaches

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) publicly posts breaches affecting 500 or more patients to their online breach portal, known as the “HIPAA Wall of Shame.” In August 2021, there were 38 breaches posted on the portal, affecting 5,120,289 patients. August 2021 healthcare breaches predominantly consisted of hacking incidents affecting healthcare providers, with 4,656,453 patients affected by hacking incidents [...]

2023-07-27T16:37:02-04:00September 14th, 2021|

New Healthcare Cybersecurity Threats Reported

As hackers become more sophisticated, it is important to keep up to date with new threats. There are two new threats that are concerning in that they are difficult to recognize and detect. One of these threats is a very convincing phishing scam, while the other is a malicious encryption scheme that evades ransomware detection software. Although these are not necessarily healthcare cybersecurity threats, they target businesses across [...]

2023-07-27T16:40:06-04:00September 3rd, 2021|

PHI Ransomware Attack Targets Law Firm

On July 16, 2021, the Campbell, Conroy & O’Neil law firm published a press release revealing that they had been targeted by a PHI ransomware attack in February 2021.  Upon discovering the incident, Campbell contracted a third-party forensic firm to determine the nature and scope of the incident. The investigation determined that an unauthorized party had gained access to Campbell’s sensitive information, [...]

2023-07-28T09:28:18-04:00July 23rd, 2021|

Eye Care Cyberattack Affects 500K Patients

Wolfe Eye Clinic, based in Iowa, suffered a cyberattack that gave hackers access to their patient files. The eye care cyberattack potentially affected 500,000 patients that had been treated by the clinic. More details are discussed below. How Did the Eye Care Cyberattack Occur? It was recently announced that, on February 8, 2021, Wolfe Eye Clinic discovered that an unauthorized party had [...]

2023-07-28T09:41:34-04:00June 29th, 2021|

7 Tips to Improving Healthcare Security

Ransomware attacks continue to rise, especially those targeting healthcare organizations. Hackers often target healthcare organizations in ransomware attacks to disrupt operations in hopes that the organization will pay a ransom. Healthcare organizations are also targeted in data theft incidents because patient information can be extremely valuable on the black market. This is why it has never been more important to protect your organization by improving your healthcare security. [...]

2023-07-28T13:23:49-04:00May 11th, 2021|

Healthcare Vendor Ransomware Attack Stalls Cancer Treatments, 170 Health Systems Hit

On April 20, 2021, Elekta, a cancer software provider, was targeted by a healthcare ransomware attack. Through the attack, hackers were able to access Elekta’s cloud-based software, used to operate radiology equipment. As a result of the incident, Elekta temporarily took their software offline, preventing treatment for cancer patients across 170 U.S. health systems. More details on the healthcare vendor ransomware attack are discussed. What We Know About [...]

2023-07-28T13:31:12-04:00April 29th, 2021|

2021 February Healthcare Breaches Affected 1.2 Million Patients

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) publicly posts breaches affecting 500 or more patients to its breach portal. There were 45 incidents reported in February 2021 affecting 1,234,943 patients. 35 of these incidents targeted healthcare providers, representing 82.29% of affected patients. 5 of these incidents targeted health plans, representing 13.64% of affected patients. 5 of these incidents targeted business associates, representing [...]

2023-07-28T13:59:22-04:00March 22nd, 2021|