Privacy & Security

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requested that states share information about individuals who receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

The new proposed rule would "break down barriers that have stood in the way of commonsense care coordination and value-based arrangements for far too long," says HHS Secretary Alex Azar.

Discovered by CyberMDX, the flaw, MDhex-Ray, could allow remote exploits that would compromise connected radiology devices – enabling access to and potential manipulation of protected health data.

From the "cold chain" to clinicians' devices at the point of care, the roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine presents bad actors with a wide array of vulnerable targets.

The senator touts "judicious use of the cloud," wider information sharing and "good ol' cyber hygiene" as private-sector best practices – but also says lack of a real deterrent for nation state bad actors has been a federal policy failure.

The COVID-19 telehealth boom has expanded health systems' perimeters – inside and outside the network – and in the process it's made them more vulnerable to breaches.

Security can't be just an afterthought when building healthcare products; it has to be a foundation for the way they are built, says Lawrence Huang, VP of product management at Cisco Meraki.

At ChristianaCare, "we've embedded information security deeply into our strategy and governance," said CEO Janice Nevin. "It's not just an IT issue, it's a patient safety issue, and it's everyone's responsibility."

Panelists at the HIMSS Healthcare Security Forum this week said cybercriminals will likely use tried-and-true techniques, such as phishing emails themed around COVID-19 vaccines or President-elect Biden, to keep exploiting novel vulnerabilities.

The latest security industry forecast from Experian warns that bad actors will continue to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis next year.