You may have heard of the recent SamSam ransomware attack on Allscripts, a juggernaut in electronic health record (EHR) services, but SamSam has also attacked other healthcare-related organizations. SamSam has attacked Erie County Medical Center (Buffalo, NY), Adams...
Allscripts, the largest physician practice Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendor, was attacked by the SamSam ransomware. As of Friday, January 26, 2018, physicians using Allscripts flagship EHR service, PRO EHR, from their Charlotte, NC and Raleigh, NC data centers...
During December, 2017, Eagle Consulting received an inquiry from a small medical practice that lost its entire electronic record database in an attack from the Hermes ransomware. By the time the practice became aware of the attack, the damaged database overwrote the...
Start with Meltdown and Spectre Part I: What Are They? HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates should pay attention to three major risk areas from Meltdown and Spectre: One — Unpatched equals unsafe, especially for these vulnerabilities. Unfortunately,...
Phillip Durachinsky of North Royalton, Ohio, was charged on 01/10/2018 for his role in creating and deploying malware called “Fruitfly”. According to the indictment, Durachinsky developed Fruitfly around 2003, and since then infected thousands of computers, including...
The computer industry was rocked in early 2018 by the announcement that all computers, tablets, and smartphones made in the last twenty or more years are affected by two serious vulnerabilities, called Meltdown and Spectre. These two vulnerabilities are unusual and...
The Federal Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records (42 CFR Part 2) was revised on January 3, 2018, and becomes effective on February 2, 2018. This regulation affects 1) health providers who offer substance abuse treatment programs, and 2) any...
Cloud storage HIPAA compliance requires some smart preparation and security work. The computing industry is moving to a cloud-centric model, and one of the significant trends is moving business data storage into the cloud. In many cases, cloud storage is more...
In recent news, a school counselor and the owner of Western Carolina Counseling Services, Joseph Frank Korzelius, pleaded guilty to health care fraud having used the personal information from his students to submit false Medicaid billings. In total, Korzelius was...
Editor’s Note: Subsequent to the publication of this article, CMS has renamed the “Meaningful Use” programs and MIPS “Advancing Care Information” category to “Promoting Interoperability”. Eagle has reviewed the proposed...
