Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Are Healthcare Organizations Under Cyberattack?

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Healthcare organizations feel under increasing attack from the Internet, while security incidents involving insiders and disappearing laptops with sensitive data are piling up. On top of that, there's now the prospect of a surprise audit from the federal government agency in charge of overseeing the HIPAA security and privacy rules.

Healthcare organizations are stepping up efforts to protect electronic patient information as they witness increased attacks against hospital networks, mindful how a data breach could hurt patients and their own reputations.

"There is definitely an uptick in attacks," says Dr. John Halamka, CIO at both Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in the Boston area. "Privacy is the foundation of everything we do. We don't want to be the TJX of healthcare." TJX is the Framingham, Mass-based retailer which last year disclosed a massive data breach involving customer records.

Dr. Halamka, who this week announced a project in electronic health records as an online service to the 300 doctors in the Beth Israel Deaconess Physicians Organization, acknowledges computers in healthcare are sometimes compromised as spam relays or to host unauthorized content such as porn.

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