Tag Archives: hospital

In a recent decision from the District of Massachusetts, the alleged perpetrator of cyber-attacks against Wayside Youth and Family Support Network and Boston Children’s Hospital (“BCH”) failed in his attempt to assert a novel defense:  necessity.  In what most would view as a positive development, the court found that the defendant and alleged hacker did not “offer[] competent evidence that it was objectively reasonable to anticipate a causal relationship between the alleged cyber attack and the purported harm to be averted.”… More

The FBI recently released an article discussing the spate of ransomware attacks on a variety of different entities, including hospitals. In the article, the FBI warned that ransomware attacks and the cybercriminals carrying them out are growing increasingly sophisticated.  The FBI opposes paying a ransom when hit by a ransomware attack, saying that doing do incentivizes more ransomware attacks, can inadvertently fund other illegal activity, and does not always result in the restoration of access. … More

On November 19, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced that eight health care facilities (mostly hospitals) have been assessed administrative penalties and fines totaling $792,500 after a determination that the facilities failed to prevent unauthorized access to confidential patient medical information.

The fines ranged from a low of $5,000 to a high of $250,000:

1. Biggs Gridley Memorial Hospital, Gridley, Butte County: The hospital was assessed a $5,000 fine after the facility failed to prevent unauthorized access of one patient’s medical information by two employees on three occasions.…

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It seems an inevitable consequence of modern celebrity: when you go to the hospital, hospital workers will look at your records (even though they have no medical reason to). The latest example of this involved the infamous mother of octuplets, Nadya Suleman. It resulted in the firing of 15 hospital workers at Kaiser Permanente’s hospital in Bellflower, California. All these violations have been reported by Kaiser to the California Department of Public Health. … More