Re: Undisclosed breach at major US facility

[Eric Ericson <harlequin () earthlink net>]

(I'm not a lawyer, but I spent a couple of three years working IS in
Radiology at a hospital so take it for what it's worth.)


First a couple of things:

1) There is no HIPAA enforcement agency. All infractions are considered
either a civil rights violation (yeah, I'm serious) or a criminal violation.

2) HIPAA applies to any company who has "data custodian" rights for any
electronic Patient Health Information (ePHI). That means the hospital,
vendors, even regular corporate HR departments (because of any information
they might have about your prior medical conditions in conjunction with your
Medical Insurance).

3) When you said you verified the patient data as being valid, what exactly
do you hypothetically mean? The reason I ask is that the Patriot act has
some VERY nasty penalties regarding offensive actions taken towards
hospitals. If you're clean though, I wouldn't stress.

4) HIPAA does have teeth in a situation like this if this data disclosure
was due to negligence or malice. If the data was knowingly disclosed the
penalty can be up to a US$250,000 fine and ten years in prison. That's for
an individual, not an organization (as are most of the other fines).

So, with that said. What I'd recommend is that you contact the Risk
Management department at the Hospitals. Explain the situation to them and
just make it clear you're trying to help. They're biggest concern is C-ing
the hospital's A, so I wouldn't stress to hard on them trying to place blame
on you. Plus this also puts them in a situation where they knowingly have to
disclose to their patients, and if the Risk Management group is mostly
lawyers, so they're less likely to try to bury this.

Good Luck,

-E2

(Oh, if you're looking for more HIPAA info, check out UCSF Medical center's
page at http://www.ucsf.edu/hipaa)

-- 
Eric Ericson
harlequin () earthlink net

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck
Norris


> From: r r <anothersecurityquestion () gmail com>
> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2006 18:57:43 -0400
> To: <full-disclosure () lists grok org uk>
> Subject: [Full-disclosure] Undisclosed breach at major US facility
>
> Need some advise here.
> I would like to know what to do if I --hypothetically speaking-- I
> were to retrieve _complete_ databases of a MAJOR us hospital.  My
> hypothetical model is not brute force, but rather an 'accidental'
> discovery by trying to retrieve updates from a software vendor.
>
> Let's say this Big Name software vendor, who sells itself as being an
> authority on security, is so flipping retarded that they stick their
> customer data on a public CVS server.  Let's say I sync to this and
> dump a couple hundreds of meg of 'updates' only to later discover that
> those are NOT updates.
>
> Those are data files for other customers (which when prodding, reveals
> itself to be very real, verified data of at least one high-profile
> hospital)
>
> I read up as much as I could on HIPAA, but this is beyond the slip-ups
> to be covered by HIPAA.  Beyond medical records and privacy, this
> wreaks of woeful incompetence by who should be freaking security
> professionals!! (4 MAJOR organizations who have royally screwed up
> here).
>
> First thoughts are to call HIPAA (has to be federally reported for
> number of people and different states affected).
> And while HIPAA is supposed to protect the 'whistleblower', I don't
> put much confidence in it.  Maybe a webpost through anonomizer (and
> borrowed connections) like I do to check gmail.
>
> And if these companies are notified, what happens?  A slap on the wrist?
> Wash it under the rug and label the person discovering it all to be a Black
> Hat?
> Let's not forget about the diebold fiasco(s)---(fwiw I don't work for
> any of the involved companies--in my theoretical model I would solely
> be the customer of questionable software).
>
> One idea (by one of my imaginary friends who pretends to be a doctor
> and a former hospital board member) was to ABSOLUTELY NOT tell the
> hospital for various reasons.  That alter-ego of mine instead
> suggested I get an attorney that specialized in that.  That sounds
> expensive.  Now, I feel like a victim.
>
> If _I_ have been able to discover such a gaping hole (and I didn't
> even TRY to find it), then I am pretty sure that it already has been
> taken. In any case, it will be stolen in a matter of weeks.  Since
> that is inevitable, I should just remove all the data I obtained and
> forget about it.
>
> In the end, I feel bad for the hundreds of thousands of people who can
> be totally raped of their identities (or be scammed for extraneous
> chargesl, etc etc).
> But, why should I be the scapegoat for pointing out that the Emperor
> has no clothes?
>
> Any useable thoughts?
>
> _______________________________________________
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Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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