Reports of HIPAA breach incidents are nothing new. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) stipulates that healthcare providers, insurance companies, and those who serve them (also known as “Business Associates”) take extensive measures to protect the Protected Health Information (PHI) of their patients. Even the dearly departed are protected from such disclosures. For this […]
Tag Archives: Hipaa
It’s the second Tuesday of the month, so that means it’s Patch Tuesday. Microsoft will begin rolling out patches as the day progresses. This means your computer will likely reboot overnight. Here’s a rundown of the patches you can expect. Three updates classified as “Critical”: Internet Explorer – all versions from 6 to 10 Microsoft […]
It has been said that the most difficult interface to secure is the one between the chair and the keyboard. This bit of “nerd humor” actually has its basis in fact. Art Gross has written a very informative post titled “Your employees will cause your next HIPAA breach” concerning the most common cause of HIPAA […]
According to the LA Times, five workers and a student research assistant were fired in the wake of a patient privacy breach affecting the patient medical records of 14 patients. According to a statement released by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the 14 patient records were “inappropriately accessed” between June 18 and June 24. Four of those […]
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week that the managed care company WellPoint, Inc. had agreed to pay a fine of $1.7 million to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy and security rules. Like nearly all HHS fines, this case sends […]
Thom Infotech is pleased to announce our new RescueSMB Backup and Disaster Recovery program. This solution brings enterprise-class business continuity capabilities to the Small to Medium Business (SMB) community in an affordable and convenient package. RescueSMB boasts the following features: Frequent Backups – As often as every 15 minute interval backups of your critical business […]
Keeping your business afloat after a disaster As the owner of a technology consulting firm, I’m occasionally asked to assist with Business Continuity Planning (BCP). As the name implies, BCP is a discipline that attempts to answer the “what if” questions that surround the viability of a business when faced with a disruptive event such […]
Oracle announced today the release of updates for Java versions 5, 6, and 7 to patch a critical java vulnerability actively being exploiting in the wild. The patches were reportedly slated for release in April but the timetable was pushed up in response to a recent report demonstrating the active exploit. This further prolongs the […]
“Anti-virus software alone is not enough”… so says the number one antivirus provider Symantec in this post. A rather stunning admission I would say, and something many in the security industry have known for quite some time. The admission comes on the heels of the successful infiltration of the New York Times by Chinese hackers […]
Apple revealed today that they were targeted by the same malware attack leveled against Facebook on February 1st. The earlier comments by Facebook hinted at a working group of high-value targets and Apple now appears to be among them. The attack took advantage of a previously unknown Java zero-day exploit to infect the engineers’ computers […]