Tag Archive for: care

Additional 15K added to Eye Care Leaders’ already record-setting breach tally

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An Air Force ophthalmologist performs surgery on a patient on Sept. 1, 2022. (Army)

Another 15,000 patients have been added to the breach tally of the Eye Care Leaders ransomware attack from nearly one year ago.

Massengale Eye Care issued a breach notice to patients in late October, informing them that their data was also compromised during what remains the largest incident reported in healthcare this year at nearly 3.7 million impacted patients.

While mainstream media outlets have recently warned that the CommonSpirit Health cyberattack could impact 20 million patients, the massive health system’s financial report from this week again stated that they are still investigating and have not found evidence of patient data impacts. As such, ECL still holds the dubious top position.

As reported, ECL’s EMR was hit with a ransomware attack on Dec. 4, after a threat actor accessed the platform and deleted databases and system configuration files. Without the data, it was not possible to identify whether the data was accessed or exfiltrated before it was deleted.

The compromised data varied by provider and patient, and for Massengale the data could include names, contact information, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, diagnostic details, and health insurance information.

ECL has not issued its own breach notice with the Department of Health and Human Services, as it defends itself against a provider-led lawsuit accusing the cloud EMR vendor of concealing additional ransomware incidents deployed earlier this year.

A number of providers affected by those alleged incidents spoke exclusively with SC Media, detailing their frustration over the stonewalling. The lawsuit status was last updated in October, with at least 13 filings to extend the time to respond to the claims and two more filings requesting the case be dismissed. In these filings, ECL has repeatedly denied these claims.

CorrectCare security incident swells to 607K impacted individuals

Two more healthcare entities have filed breach notices with HHS, after their medical claims processing vendor CorrectCare informed them that their patient information was exposed due to two misconfigured file databases in July.

CorrectCare Integrated…

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The cyberattack with the most negative impact to patient care: ransomware

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Ransomware attacks impact patient care the most out of the four common types of cyberattacks on the health sector, a study by Proofpoint and the Ponemon Institute found. (Air Force)

A study released by Proofpoint in tandem with the Ponemon Institute found that ransomware attacks are the most likely kind of cyberattack to have a negative impact on patient care.

The report, released Thursday, said a ransomware attack could lead to procedure or test delays in 64% of the organizations surveyed and longer patient stays for 59%.

Overall, 89% of the surveyed organizations experienced an average of 43 attacks in the past 12 months, almost one attack per week. More than 20% suffering the four most common types of attacks — cloud compromise, ransomware, supply chain, and business email compromise — experienced increased patient mortality rates.

“The attacks we analyzed put a significant strain on healthcare organizations’ resources,” said Larry Ponemon, founder and chairman of the Ponemon Institute. “Their result is not only tremendous cost but also a direct impact on patient care, endangering people’s safety and well being.”

Dave Gerry, chief operating officer at Bugcrowd, said healthcare continues to be a target of attacks given its enormous attack surface across critical applications, cloud environments, and IoT devices. Gerry said ensuring critical applications, devices and systems are secure should remain the top priority for healthcare security teams. 

“Bad actors understand the critical nature of the systems supporting healthcare organizations, and the human impact behind it, leading to an increased likelihood of ransom payments,” Gerry said.

John Gunn, chief executive officer of Token, said poor patient outcomes including potential deaths that result from ransomware attacks will create a liability doomsday for hospitals. Gunn said plaintiff’s lawyers will blame any negative patient outcome that occurs during a cyberattack on the security incident and the hospital’s negligence in not preventing every possible hacking attack.

“Hospitals that are unable to demonstrate the highest levels of cybersecurity will be exposed to lawsuits and judgements that could easily…

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Why North Korea Ransomware Attacks Target U.S. Health Care Providers

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The U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that around $500,000 in BitcoinBTC
 has been seized from North Korean threat actors who were using Maui ransomware to attack healthcare organizations in the United States. DOJ filed a complaint in the District of Kansas asking for the forfeiture of the Bitcoin be returned to the victims of the attacks which were healthcare providers in Kansas and Colorado.

The attacks caused extensive disruption to IT systems and medical services and put patient safety at risk. The new ransomware variant was discovered during an investigation of a ransomware attack on a hospital in Kansas in May 2021. The Kansas provider had alerted the FBI when the ransomware occurred. As a result, the FBI was able to observe a $120,000 bitcoin payment into one of the seized accounts that was separately being paid by the health care provider in Colorado.

The attack was traced to a North Korean hacking group that is suspected of receiving backing from the DPRK. The Kansas hospital had its servers encrypted, preventing access to essential IT systems for more than a week. The hospital paid a ransom of $100,000 for the keys to decrypt files and regain access to its servers and promptly.

“Thanks to rapid reporting and cooperation from a victim, the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors have disrupted the activities of a North Korean state-sponsored group deploying…

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Ransomware attack targets Professional Finance Co., affecting 657 health care clients

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A ransomware attack against Professional Finance Co. Inc., a Greeley-based accounts-receivable management company, has resulted in a data breach potentially affecting 657 of the company’s health-care-provider clients and almost two million individuals.

The breach, with more than 1.9 million individuals potentially affected, represents the second-biggest data breach affecting health care companies so far in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Breach Portal. A March attack against Shields Health Care Group Inc. of Massachusetts affected more than 2.4 million individuals.

The Professional Finance breach already has prompted four federal lawsuits accusing the company of failing to exercise reasonable care in securing customer and employee data. The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Denver and are seeking class-action status.

The ransomware attack occurred Feb. 26, but Professional Finance did not begin informing client health care providers until May 5, according to a Notice of Cybersecurity Incident posted on the company’s website.

“On Feb. 26, 2022, PFC detected and stopped a sophisticated ransomware attack in which an unauthorized third party accessed and disabled some of PFC’s computer systems,” according to the incident report. “PFC immediately engaged third party forensic specialists to assist us with securing the network environment and investigating the extent of any unauthorized activity. Federal law enforcement was also notified. The ongoing investigation determined that an unauthorized third party accessed files containing certain individuals’ personal information during this incident. PFC notified the respective health care providers on or around May 5, 2022.”

The company issued a press release about the data breach July 1.

PFC said it had “found no evidence that personal information has been specifically misused.” But data potentially accessed by the cyber attacker includes first and last name, address, accounts-receivable balance and information regarding payments made to accounts, according to the company. Additionally, date of birth, Social Security number, health insurance and medical-treatment…

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