Content by Marianne Kolbasuk McGee

Cohen: Trump Was Aware of WikiLeaks Planning Email Dump

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 27, 2019

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney for President Trump, told a Congressional committee Wednesday morning that the president was aware his longtime associate, Roger Stone, was in communication with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks about plans to dump a collection of hacked Democratic National Committee emails.

Sen. Warner Demands Answers on Healthcare Cybersecurity

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 26, 2019

Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., has sent letters to four federal agencies and 12 healthcare associations posing long lists of questions as a prelude to developing short-term and long-term strategies for improving healthcare cybersecurity.

UConn Health Among the Latest Phishing Victims

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 25, 2019

Phishing and other hacking incidents have led to several recently reported large health data breaches, including one that UConn Health reports affected 326,000 individuals.

Information Blocking Rules: What They Would Mean for CISOs

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 22, 2019

Healthcare CISOs and other security and privacy leaders must carefully assess HHS' proposed new rules designed to help prevent the blocking of health information sharing and consider how they might "operationalize" the provisions within their organizations, says attorney Jodi Daniel.

Misconfiguration Leads to Major Health Data Breach

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 21, 2019

A misconfigured database at UW Medicine in Washington state that left patient data exposed on the internet for several weeks resulted in a breach affecting almost 1 million individuals. Why are breaches caused by such misconfigurations so common?

Congress Scrutinizes Facebook Health Data Privacy Complaint

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 20, 2019

A Congressional committee is demanding Facebook provide answers concerning a complaint filed with the FTC alleging misleading privacy practices involving personal health information. The complaint also alleged a data leak exposed the names of over 10,000 cancer patients participating in a Facebook group.

Post-Breach HIPAA Enforcement: A Call for 'Safe Harbors'

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 19, 2019

Among the hundreds of responses to a federal request for comments about potential changes to the HIPAA rules were suggestions for "safe harbors" that would shelter organizations with strong security strategies from HIPAA enforcement actions after a health data breach.

Key Security Considerations for AI and Robotics

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 18, 2019

As the use of artificial intelligence tools and robotics continues to grow, it's crucial for organizations to assess the potential security risks posed, says attorney Stephen Wu, who reviews key issues in an interview.

HIMSS19: The Cybersecurity Obstacles, Opportunities Ahead

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 15, 2019

Another annual HIMSS conference is in the rear-view mirror. But what's up the road in terms of top cybersecurity-related challenges facing the healthcare sector?

Business Email Compromises: The Growing Threat in Healthcare

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 15, 2019

Business email compromise attacks are becoming far more common in the healthcare sector, says Rod Piechowski of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, who discusses promising technologies to help address the threat.

Blockchain in Healthcare: The Potential Benefits, Risks

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 14, 2019

Indiana University Health is evaluating the use of blockchain in two areas to improve healthcare information security, Mitch Parker, CISO, says in an interview at the HIMSS19 conference. He sizes up the potential risks and benefits.

Deciphering HHS' Proposed Information Blocking Rules

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 13, 2019

Proposed rules released this week by the Department of Health and Human Services aim to define and discourage inappropriate blocking of the secure sharing of health information, Elise Sweeney Anthony of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT explains in an interview at the HIMSS19 conference.

Medical Device Cyber Risk: An Enterprise Problem

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 12, 2019

Medical device cybersecurity risks should be viewed as an enterprise problem, say Tracey Hughes of Duke University Health Systems and Clyde Hewitt of security consultancy CynergisTek, who outline critical security steps.

Keeping Incident Response Plans Current

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 12, 2019

Many healthcare organizations are falling short in their incident response plans, says Mark Dill, principal consultant at tw-Security. The former director of information security at the Cleveland Clinic discusses best practices for keeping those programs current in an interview at the HIMSS19 conference.

HIPAA Enforcement Update: Areas of Focus

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee  •  February 12, 2019

The HHS Office for Civil Rights is paying particular attention to complaints involving patients' access to their health information; it's also focusing on investigations of organizations with patterns of HIPAA noncompliance, Nick Heesters of the agency explains in an interview at the HIMSS19 conference.