Content by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee

The Widespread Effect of the Change Healthcare Mega Hack

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  March 1, 2024

The Change Healthcare mega hack has taken nearly 120 of the company's IT products and services offline since Feb. 21, and that cyber disruption is having serious, widespread impact on the entire healthcare industry including major players, said attorney Sara Goldstein of the law firm BakerHostetler.

Rhysida Offers to Sell Children's Hospital Data for $3.4M

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 29, 2024

Ransomware group Rhysida is offering to sell "exclusive data" stolen from a Chicago children's hospital for $3.4 million on the dark web, while the hospital is still struggling to recover its IT systems, including its electronic health records and patient portal, one month after the attack.

BlackCat Pounces on Health Sector After Federal Takedown

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 28, 2024

BlackCat claimed on its dark web site that it is behind the biggest healthcare hack so far the year - exfiltrating 6 terabytes of "highly selective data" relating to "all" Change Healthcare clients, including Tricare, Medicare, CVS Caremark, MetLife and more.

HSCC Issues Cyber 'Call to Action' Plan for Health Sector

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 27, 2024

The Health Sector Coordinating Council has issued a five-year strategic plan - "a call to action" - for healthcare and public health organizations to implement cybersecurity programs that do a better job of protecting their patients against the ever-rising tide of threats.

Groups Warn Health Sector of Change Healthcare Cyber Fallout

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 26, 2024

Healthcare industry groups are urging their members to take certain precautionary actions in the wake of the attack last week on Change Healthcare, a unit of Optum. The advisories come as some researchers say the incident appears to involve exploitation of flaws in ConnectWise's ScreenConnect tool.

Change Healthcare Outage Hits Military Pharmacies Worldwide

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 23, 2024

Pharmacies at U.S. military hospitals and clinics worldwide are among the entities affected by the cyberattack on Optum's Change Healthcare this week, which has forced the IT services company to take many of its applications offline. Change Healthcare disconnected its IT systems on Wednesday.

HHS OCR Tells Congress It Needs More Funding for HIPAA Work

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 23, 2024

As the volume of major health data breaches rises, the federal agency charged with investigating those incidents told Congress this week that it lacks the needed funding to keep up with its mounting workload. The agency also separately announced its second ransomware HIPAA breach settlement.

Why OT Security Keeps Some Healthcare Leaders Up at Night

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 23, 2024

It's not just medical device cybersecurity that's keeping some healthcare security leaders up at night - it's also the risks posed by other critical connected gear that patients and clinicians depend upon, said Ali Youssef, director of medical device and emerging tech security at Henry Ford Health System.

Change Healthcare Cyber Outage Disrupts Firms Nationwide

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 22, 2024

Change Healthcare - a unit of Optum that provides IT services and applications to hundreds of U.S. pharmacies, payers and healthcare providers - is dealing with a cyber incident that has forced the company to take its applications offline enterprisewide. The company said is triaging the situation.

Hack at Services Firm Hits 2.4 Million Eye Doctor Patients

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 21, 2024

An Arizona firm that provides administrative services to a dozen ophthalmology practices in several states is notifying nearly 2.4 million patients of a data theft incident. The hack is among the latest recent major data breaches involving vendors of critical services to healthcare firms.

Bill Proposes Measuring the Accuracy of Patient Matching

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 20, 2024

A bipartisan pair of congressmen is again attempting to address long-standing issues of patient safety and privacy - as well as medical errors, inadvertent information disclosures and denied medical claims - which all occur when patients and the health records used to treat them do not match.

New Guides Aim to Help Health Sector Beef Up Cyber, Privacy

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 19, 2024

Two new guidance resources - one from regulators and the other from an industry council - aim to help healthcare firms strengthen their protection of sensitive patient information and critical IT systems. The publications come as the Biden administration is pushing the sector to up its cyber game.

Protecting EHR Systems Against Attacks and Compromises

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 19, 2024

When a hospital or clinic is hit with a cyberattack, it often seems as if the electronic health record systems just can't win. Even if the EHR system is not the prime target of the attack, it's still frequently taken off line as the organization responds to the incident. What should entities do?

FDA Ramps Up Resources for Medical Device Cybersecurity

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 16, 2024

The FDA's multifaceted approach to strengthening medical device security centers on several key areas, including enhanced regulatory oversight, industry collaboration and a recent organizational change that raises the profile of the agency's device work, said the FDA's Dr. Suzanne Schwartz.

US FTC Proposes Penalties for Deepfake Impersonators

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee , David Perera  •  February 16, 2024

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said it's too easy for fraudsters to launch "child in trouble" and romance scams, so it has proposed rule-making that would give the agency new authority to sue in federal court any technology providers that facilitate impersonation fraud.