The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said the agency has seen a 264 percent increase in large ransomware breaches since 2018.
The settlement with Cascade Eye and Skin Centers, P.C., a privately-owned health care provider in the state of Washington, resolves potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule, following a ransomware attack investigation by OCR.
Ransomware and hacking are the primary cyberthreats in health care, HHS said. Indeed, since 2018, there has been a 264 percent increase in large breaches reported to OCR involving ransomware attacks.
“Cybercriminals continue to target the heath care sector with ransomware attacks. Health care entities that do not thoroughly assess the risks to electronic protected health information and regularly review the activity within their electronic health record system leave themselves vulnerable to attack, and expose their patients to unnecessary risks of harm,” said OCR Director Melanie Fontes Rainer in an announcement. “Ensuring the confidentiality of electronic protected health information is critical to protect health information privacy and integral to our national security in the health care sector. OCR urges all health care entities to take the essential precautions and stay vigilant to safeguard their systems from cyberattacks.”
The HIPAA Security Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ electronic personal health information that is created, received, used, or maintained by a covered entity. It also requires appropriate administrative, physical and technical safeguards to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and security of electronic protected health information.
OCR began to investigate Cascade Eye and Skin Centers following a complaint that the health care provider experienced a ransomware attack that involved approximately 291,000 files that contained electronic protected health information (ePHI). During the investigation, OCR found multiple potential violations of the HIPAA Security Rule, including failures by Cascade Eye and Skin Centers to conduct a compliant risk analysis to determine the potential risks and vulnerabilities to ePHI in its systems, and to have sufficient monitoring of its health information systems’ activity to protect against a cyberattack.
Under the terms of the settlement, HHS said that Cascade Eye and Skin Centers has paid $250,000 to OCR and will implement a corrective action plan that requires the provider to take steps toward protecting and securing the security of PHI. OCR will monitor the corrective action plan for two years. These corrective actions include:
· Conduct an accurate and thorough risk analysis to determine the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its ePHI
· Implement a risk management plan to address and mitigate security risks and vulnerabilities identified in their risk analysis
· Develop a written process to regularly review records of information system activity, such as audit logs, access reports, and security incident tracking reports
· Develop policies and procedures for responding to an emergency or other occurrence that damages systems that contain ePHI
· Develop written procedures to assign a unique name and/or number for identifying and tracking user identity in its systems that contain ePHI
· Review and revise, if necessary, written policies and procedures to comply with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules
OCR also recommends health care providers, health plans, clearinghouses, and business associates that are covered by HIPAA take the following steps to mitigate or prevent cyberthreats:
· Review all vendor and contractor relationships to ensure business associate agreements are in place as appropriate and address breach/security incident obligations
· Integrate risk analysis and risk management into business processes; conducted regularly and when new technologies and business operations are planned
· Ensure audit controls are in place to record and examine information system activity
· Implement regular review of information system activity
· Utilize multi-factor authentication to ensure only authorized users are accessing ePHI
· Encrypt ePHI to guard against unauthorized access to ePHI
· Incorporate lessons learned from incidents into the overall security management process
· Provide training specific to organization and job responsibilities and on regular basis; reinforce workforce members’ critical role in protecting privacy and security