Ransom, implant attack highlight need for healthcare security

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.csoonline.com/article/725880/ransom-implant-attack-highlight-need-for-healthcare-security

By Taylor Armerding
CSO
January 08, 2013

All healthcare data breaches are not equal.

They're all bad, and reaching epidemic levels. The security testing 
company Redspin, for one, found that Protected Health Information (PHI) 
breaches nearly doubled from 2010 to 2011. The Department of Health and 
Human Services has reported 525 breaches of 500 or more records, 
involving 21.4 individuals over the past three years, said Redspin 
president and CEO Daniel Berger.

But the raw numbers are only a piece of the story. Gienna Shaw, editor 
of FierceHealthIT, wrote in a post this week: "It's not the numbers that 
interest me most. It's the stories behind them," she wrote. "And there 
are so many stories ..."

One involved the Surgeons of Lake County, a small medical practice in 
Libertyville, Ill. Hackers broke into the system last summer, gained 
access to the names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit card 
numbers and some medical information on more than 7,000 patients, then 
encrypted all the information and demanded a ransom.

Another involved medical students creating fake identities so they could 
post patient information on Facebook and other social media sites. A 
third involved malware infecting hospital equipment.

[...]


______________________________________________
Visit the InfoSec News Security Bookstore
Best Selling Security Books and More!
http://www.shopinfosecnews.org