Help Me With HIPAA

There are many challenges that come with preparing for and responding to a ransomware attack. Ransomware gangs are constantly changing their tactics in order to get to your organization's data. Therefore, as the ransomware landscape continues to evolve, so too must the preparations and responses of businesses. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/323

You know how we love to pass along guides and resources that can help you improve your organization's privacy and security programs.  Today, we are going to review a recent resource guide put out by HHS' ASPR TRACIE office called Healthcare System Cybersecurity - Readiness and Response Considerations.  This guide is packed with very helpful tips, best practices, and resources surrounding cybersecu...

Social media is full of people who speak "confidently" about topics that they simply do not fully understand.  HIPAA is one of those topics.  Today, we are covering 7 HIPAA facts that we hope will set the record straight about frequently misunderstood HIPAA topics. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/321

Learn 'tricks of the trade' from a real social engineering tester. We interview William Price of Cyberx.tech   to learn how they are able to successfully penetrate a company's defenses and get access to their most critical information. How likely would your organization be vulnerable to these same methods? More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/320

Have you ever heard tech folks refer to a computer problem as an ID10T error?  You probably thought it was some highly technical term geeks use.  Well, it's not and today we are going to talk about a couple posts and articles where folks' are flying their ID10T flag high and proud. And hopefully try to prevent you from making an ID10T error. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/319

It's that time of year again.  Time to start preparing for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month coming up in October.  Do Your Part. #BeCyberSmart is the theme again this year.  Be a Cybersecurity Awareness Month Champion for your business, your community and your family.  More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/318

Managing your vendors, or your supply chain, has become increasingly more important these days.  As we've seen in the news just in the last several months, data and system breaches can come as a result of the vendors you work with.  So, we felt like it was time to revisit this topic by reviewing the recent update to the HIC SCRiM guide that includes 6 steps for vendor management. More info at Help...

Every year we cover the most recent report released on the cost of a data breach.  No surprise from this year's report that the cost continues to rise. And healthcare breaches cost the most across all industries.  Listen in as we go through IBM's Cost of Data Breach Report 2021. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/316

There's a new data breach notification bill in Congress that will affect the business community as a whole, not just healthcare. It will create a new data breach disclosure requirement for federal agencies, federal contractors and critical infrastructure companies. It's time to let folks know when breaches happen. We can't protect ourselves from things we don't know about. More info at HelpMeWithH...

There is so much happening in the cyber world today that we couldn't decide on just one topic to cover in this episode.  So, we will be jumping around and covering a lot of different cyber topics, hence the title of the podcast, Cyber Sqwerl. So, listen fast folks… we've got a lot to cover. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/314

Summertime, holidays and long weekends, where many of us are taking time off, are prime times for cyber attacks.  The bad guys are counting on people being in a hurry and letting their guard down so it'll make it easier to suck you into their attack.  July 4th 2021 was no different.  An MSP was attacked by cyber criminals.  Although this is still an active incident, we will cover what we know in t...

Offshore services are a popular option for many businesses. The ability to work around the clock from different sides of the planet is one thing but the cost savings are the primary driving force for this solution. When it comes to HIPAA Business Associates, though, there are a lot of variables that must be considered when deciding whether to offshore or not. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/312

Securing your business is not always the easiest thing to do nor the cheapest.  Today we will review a Cisco study on small and medium sized businesses and their security best bets. In other words, the things that you can do that will help you to most likely attain success and get you the most bang for your buck. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/311

The Department of Labor (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued its very first cybersecurity guidance in April 2021and they sound remarkably like all the things that we recommend doing under HIPAA, HICP and the NIST cybersecurity framework.  Let's check it out! More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/310

They say ignorance is bliss.  Ignorance can also leave you vulnerable to cyber attacks and patient safety issues. As we see news about cyber attacks coming from everywhere, you might ask "Is it really that bad?" Yes, yes it is. And it continues to get worse. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/309

Privacy and security should be a part of all organizations day-to-day activity and company culture.  But how do you know how mature your privacy and security program really is? By using one of the many maturity models.  Today, we are discussing the new DoD Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) that breaks controls into levels so you can see what implementation level or maturity level y...

It's been a while since we've reviewed an OCR settlement that wasn't about the patient right of access initiative. Things are a changin', and in more ways than one. OCR announced the Peachstate settlement just this week that got our attention.  How this case ended up being investigated in the first place is interesting. And as usual, the headline doesn't tell the whole story.  So, let's dive in an...

One of the biggest security problems on the Internet is a ransomware attack.  Ransomware can impact all our lives.  Just take the Scripps Health and Colonial Pipeline ransomware attacks that we discussed in recent podcast episodes. Last week we gave you 6 tips for planning for a ransomware attack. And today we are going to discuss 6 points from the recently released cybersecurity Executive Order....

Ransomware is just not going away. Falling victim to a ransomware attack will have a BIG impact on you, your business, your clients and your patients.  So, today we share some ransomware planning tips.  It's important to know what things you should be doing and should at least consider so that you don't get caught with your proverbial "pants down." More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/305

We've talked about how damaging a ransomware attack can be in healthcare, not only for the practice or health facility but also for patients and the integrity and availability of their data.  Today, we discuss an active ransomware attack affecting a health system that is not just making the local news, but also is blowing up on social media and creating a number of privacy concerns.  The implicati...

We've all seen the websites of companies that claim to have a "HIPAA compliant" app, product or service.  But does that really mean anything?  The short answer is NO!  There is no such thing.  Today, we answer a listener question about products and services with these types of claims.  And, as you can imagine, we have a lot to say about this topic.   More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/303

We talk about patching pretty frequently on the podcast, but there is still a misconception that your IT or MSP team is patching everything. Systems are not designed to patch all hardware and software all of the time. There is a level of responsibility that falls on us to understand what is being patched by IT, what isn't and what we do about those unpatched applications. More info at HelpMeWithHI...

Basic Cyber Hygiene is a fairly new term, but I realized we have mentioned it several times over the last few weeks. What do we really intend people to see when we talk about it? That may be helpful if we think it would solve most of our cyber attack problems, huh. More info at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/301

Hard to believe that this is our official 300th episode! We are still a tiny podcast in a huge sea but we are pretty sure you can not find a longer running podcast about HIPAA Privacy and Security. To celebrate we have some very special guests, Dave Bittner and Ben Yellen from the CyberWire Caveat podcast. They are  joining us for a discussion about where we all see things going in the future for...

Each year the National HIPAA Summit 2021 is a regular event for us. It was held last year just before the shutdown. The event this year was loaded with discussions about what had happened in the previous 12 months and the massive list of things happening in the next 12 months. That is A LOT of HIPAA! Today we cover part 2 of news of note from the conference. More at HelpMeWithHIPAA.com/299