Once again, a company has been breached not only
once, but twice. Not has this occurred twice, but twice in the same year!!!!!
In April, a phishing attack compromised the records of 16,000 patients. This
time, however, 1.4 million patients are at risk. “The hacked accounts included
protected health information, including names, addresses, medical data,
treatment information, lab results and/or insurance information. For some of
the 1.4 million patients, their payment card and Social Security number were included
in the breach” (Davis, 2018) . This has been the
largest breach in the U.S. this year.
I don’t quite get why this keeps
happening. I think that there needs to be a solution that maybe separates vital
information such as social security numbers out of patient files. Maybe they
should come up with a unique number to identify their patients that doesn’t
lead to as many issues as having a social security number compromised. They
also need to increase their training for employees, and actually discipline employees who break the rules. Making penalties
harsher should make employees pay closer attention to their actions.
Bibliography
Davis, J. (2018, July 31). 1.4 millio patient
records breached in UnityPoint Health phishing attack. Retrieved from
Healthcare IT News:
https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/14-million-patient-records-breached-unitypoint-health-phishing-attack