Anti Spam Filter » Medical

Computer Virus Hits Kern Medical Center

admin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:06:55 +0000

According to news published by kget on August 8, 2010, was of California-based Kern Medical Center (MMC) is being attacked by malicious software viruses specifically attack the administrative field. On 26 July 2010, MMC against the virus and it took almost fourteen days to clear the system. Dale Robbins, Emergency Department, KMC, said they were largely flying in the blind, according to news kget August 8, 2010. The attack used 13 different types of malware such as viruses, and 800 were affected. In addition, the virus system is so slow that it became almost impossible to get access to patient data. Paul Hensler, CEO of MMC, said he installed several documents pornography MMC system and forced the hospital system to spit a stream of gibberish paper covered, according to reports from the Bakersfield July 29, 2010. Hensler said KMC printers are unattended at the time of virus attack and packs of paper were in vain. Computer viruses are particularly nasty strain that forced the MMC activity back to the age of the paper July 27, 2010 and MMC had to maintain access for mobile devices, online billing systems and other servers. Security experts said the hospital had no idea it was a joke or anything but disastrous results of the attack. Services deer William County IT said it could have come from an unknown email attachment and secure part of the open, according to news kget August 10, 2010. They also stated that the deer viruses in the hospital did not detect the infection electronics, and that he knew nothing about it. This type of attack that happened at other hospitals, but authorities said the virus could have been much worse. Steve Dupre, FBI agent, said he could not disclose details of other cases of attacks against the hospital was like a KMC step, as these cases remain unsolved, according to reports bakersfiled July 29, 2010.

Calgary Medical Clinic System of a virus

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:01:44 +0000

Many patients in the context of a clinic at the University of Calgary, which Sunridge Medical Clinic in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, warned that a computer virus took advantage of a medical database, there is the possibility that their personal health information may have been compromised. Task, after the incident, the university sent messages to about 5,000 people, talk about a possible risk to your health information private. Explain the incident in detail, Chief, Department of Family Medicine, Dr. Cathy MacLean of Sunridge, stated that two different variants of the virus attacks the system of the clinic. The former can be turned off, and the other can allow hackers to access information or control remotely. These viruses will hit the PC, which stood at Sunridge University Medical Clinic, Dr. MacLean said, according to a statement from Vancouversun. com March 17, 2010. It was in January 2010 found that the clinic staff, some difficulty, for the first time as a team to beat problems. Call an IT group, the virus came to light, “said MacLean. Spokesman Wayne Wood of the Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta said that an official investigation into this latest security updates for violation is already, according to a statement from Calgarysun. com Posted 17 March 2010. Clinic officials said the infected computer include medical reports, faxes, names, numbers, health and billing information. Meanwhile, due to computer hacking, affected patients have become angry. Perplexed, because of lack of accountability for the clinic, a patient suffering names Elaine Peters said he felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that their private information could be attacked, according to a statement from the Calgary Herald. com March 17, 2010. Ms. Peters also believes that a formal complaint with the Office of Privacy Commissioner. Alberta, patients will be affected by this type of incident is not new. In 2008, according to MacLean, a few patients in Sunridge found a violation of privacy when another computer through the University of Calgary accidentally access the intranet of a data file of patients. The computer that file sharing was not sufficiently secured within a statement of the Calgary Herald. com March 17, 2010.

Calgary Medical Clinic System of a virus

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:01:03 +0000

Calgary Medical Clinic System of a virus

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:56:48 +0000

Calgary Medical Clinic System of a virus

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:56:13 +0000

HIPPA = SPAM: Google, Microsoft pledge to keep your online medical records private — But are they asking forgiveness or permission?

admin — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:58:58 +0000

My grandfather used to say when I was faced with difficult a choice, “It’s sometimes easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission. ”

A deeply thoughtful, wiser-than-his-years Veteran of WWII who died peacefully before I turned fourteen, he wasn’t advocating I live a life devoid of consequences, of respect for authority or of moral responsibility (at my age, though, it sure sounded like he was giving me the nod to take my mom’s old Ford LTD out for a spin). I realized later in life that he meant adults sometimes act like kids and fight over silly things. So when I have a decision to make and I feel strongly about it, he was saying it’s best to trust my conscience, read my moral compass, make a choice and live with the outcome.

I sure miss my Grand Daddy. But in this age of technology-takes-all, I am sort of glad he’s not around to see what’s happening to the world he once knew.

It’s hard — almost painful — to imagine him Tweeting, updating his Facebook account or even using a telephone without a cord attached. Still, after suffering through several open-heart surgeries when replacing your own valves with those from a pig was your only hope for staying alive, it’s a blessing and a curse he’s not here to see how technology is changing medicine. His sage advice about making responsible decisions has never been more relevant when I think about how we’re evolving, revolving, around technology; especially when it comes to healthcare reform.

While the Cat’s Away, the Mouse will Play

Some $44 billion will move fast into the pockets of health insurance providers, information technology companies and medical practices when (or, more appropriately, if) Congress passes healthcare reform this year. Depending on whom you ask on Capitol Hill, the reform bill is either on its way to the President’s desk, or it’s a badly injured mouse in the midst of the biggest cat fight in D. C at the moment.

While the bill is still under debate and changing by the minute, one provision of reform that both Democrats and Republicans apparently agree upon is mandating the paper-heavy healthcare industry adopt electronic medical records by 2013. The argument is that paper breeds inefficiency and thus costs the industry a lot of money in lost productivity. Paperless medicine creates affordable healthcare, say proponents.

Four years is the equivalent of the entire Ice Age in IT. But Google and Microsoft are among other server farm custodians who may have to ask Congress for forgiveness before the mandate becomes law. That’s because they’ve poured billions into Internet-based patient medical record repositories that are completely unregulated while Congress is too busy arguing the details of reform to pay full attention to patient privacy.

What’s more, as far as anyone can tell, these free subscriber-based services are exempt from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). This means all the information you, your insurance company or your authorized physician(s) store on Google or Microsoft servers is a simple keystroke away from becoming public information for all the world to see.

Bill Gates, M. D.

Google Health, one of the latest data integration components from the Silicon Valley search engine giant, and HealthVault, Microsoft’s near-mirror service, market themselves to consumers who want to simplify their medical histories using their servers as the electronic filing cabinet. Once you sign up, you can grant permissions to your doctor, hospital, insurance company and pharmacy to read, review and add to your record. To save time at the doctor’s office or in the event of an emergency, the services tout, you can print a wallet card of your medical history and account information to carry with you.

Both companies place the security burden on the user, and have specific language in their respective use agreements that hold them harmless for any breach of data caused by a compromise of a user account. But Phil Cox, principal consultant at network security company SystemExperts, told Information Week magazine recently that security at both Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault is lousy.

“Given the security issues with generic credentials, I worry that individual users will have little recourse if their information is compromised,” said Cox. “I do think this will cause some very interesting legal challenges. ”

Cox and other IT security experts believe that both services will eventually be brought under HIPAA rules, which might cause Google and Microsoft to drop the services rather than bring them up to regulatory standards. Google and Microsoft plan to evolve their services to a complete data repository of health information, which would be a “HUGE collection of highly sensitive data” with “inadequate” protection, Cox said.

OMG! Becky has High Cholesterol!

Aside from other potential security breaches associated with storing information in “The Cloud” — that nebulous place IT guys refer to which really means someone else’s hard drive other than your own, both Google and Microsoft use generic credentials. Your existing Windows Live ID and Google ID, which have had security violations in the past, is now the only firewall behind your medical history. This isn’t as big of a deal if say, an e-mail to your friend is sacrificed during a server outage. But data being protected in your medical records repository is much more sensitive than your calendar sporting the parties you’re headed to next weekend.

Simple blips of social data, work documents and web pages are the stuff that Windows and Google credentials were built to protect. Not the latest results of your C. T. Scan, your prescription for anti-depressant medication or your physician’s note revealing you have a terminal illness.

But technology analyst Richard Moore counters that privacy and security concerns for services like HealthVault and Google Health are overblown. Sure, he admits, a major security breach of healthcare information from either of those services would be a disaster. But the companies will use top-of-the-line security to protect data. And right now the data is scattered around small physician practices and hospitals, which have data breaches regularly. “I am of the opinion that your records will actually be safer and more secure than what is happening today,” Moore said.

Phishers medical advice to patients acquire “Details

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:57:41 +0000

Online scammers in an attempt to attract doctors and others to disclose patient records and important personal information, use new tricks, as reported iHealthBeat. org last week of January 2010. Overall, phishing involves fake e-mails written specifically to ask for confidential information such as passwords, user names and financial details. Normally, these emails contain attachments with viruses or links to unknown websites. For example, in one recent case, is unsuspecting users are invited to register online to a database through a vaccine for most of the fraudulent CDC (Centers for Disease Control) in e-mails. CDC officials issued a warning to warn users about fraud and they said that probably these emails containing links to download malicious software. The scammers have even gone so far to victims of specific segments of the population, imitating a group that the exchange of information or data with users on a regular basis. Copied as “spear phishing, targeted attacks are fairly difficult to detect most regulars. To support the point, the experts to an event that took place in 2009. In this case, a faculty physician at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, received an e-mail message purporting to be sent to staff for information technology at the hospital, where she was asked to provide your credentials routine security updates. Given that there is a basic e-mail, the doctor gave her the login information and data from more than 600 patients to the scammer. According to security experts, fraudsters are now increasingly focused on the doctors because they are the source where they can get lots of important data from multiple people at once. There are some red flags that users can use to avoid spear phishing attacks. Experts recommend people to check the source address and e-mail address to which applications are to click. So if the sender appears to be unknown, is the key to simply ignore the email. Attached files that end with. “Exe” often contain viruses, so be careful. In order to avoid email scams in your inbox is always appropriate immune system by installing the latest security software.

Medical Center opens the heart to the community

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:52:28 +0000

Centennial Middle, Harold Oliver among schools hit by burglary
Portland police are investigating a series of burglaries at 12 schools in the Portland area, including Harold Oliver Intermediate in the Centennial School District. Harold Oliver was burgled twice, on the nights of Dec. 4 and Dec. 9, according to Portland Police Detective Mary Wheat. Wendy Reif, …