HIPAA compliance is regulated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and enforced by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). In 2013, the final Omnibus rule was enacted, binding business associates - or third-party vendors - to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This modification added another level of compliance complexity to an industry not accustomed to operating in the cybersecurity domain - the healthcare industry.
The healthcare industry has been a favored target for cybercriminals for many years. In the first half of 2022 alone, 324 attacks against healthcare organizations have been reported. Attackers have primarily focused on large hospitals in years past, but there has been a sudden switch to smaller healthcare companies and specialty clinics. There seems to be a clear trend in attacks against the healthcare industry, and that trend includes targeting smaller healthcare companies and clinics.
Healthcare organisations in the United States are being warned to be on their guard once again, this time against a family of ransomware known as Venus. An advisory from the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has warned that the cybercriminals behind the Venus ransomware have targeted at least one healthcare entity in the United States, and are known to be targeting publicly-exposed Remote Desktop Servers.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) issued the 35-page report Cybersecurity on Patient Safety on November 3, which called the ongoing transition to better cybersecurity for the healthcare sector as being painfully slow and inadequate. This is despite the fact the healthcare sector is uniquely vulnerable to cyberattacks.
As the healthcare industry becomes more digitally inclined, there’s a need for systems to be put in place to avoid breaches in the security of data records. Most healthcare organizations are already embracing the DevOps (Development and Operations) model, but unfortunately, security seems to be neglected, resulting in data breaches and numerous cyber attacks on software and mobile applications.
The impact of ransomware attacks on healthcare is as alarming as it is under-addressed. The United States healthcare system alone faces an annual burden of nearly $21 billion due to these attacks. It pays well over $100 million in ransoms, and is beginning to acknowledge the tragic realities of impacted patient care, including higher patient mortality rates. For every headline related to cyberattacks, there are likely hundreds more that go unreported.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted in 1996 and sets forth a comprehensive set of standards for protecting sensitive patient health information. The Privacy Rule applies to all entities that fall within the definition of a “covered entity“, which generally includes healthcare providers, health plans, and clearinghouses.
