We’re all guilty of it.  We keep things that we don’t need, like that pair of stone-washed jeans from 1992 that you hope will come back into style or your beanie baby collection that you blindly believe might be worth something someday.  While our inability to purge old stuff from our closets may cost us closet space, the repercussions for an organization that hoards data are far more significant.  From a cybersecurity perspective, the more personal information a company maintains, the more information it has to lose.  Consequently, the more information a company loses, the higher the financial and reputational costs.
Continue Reading Less is more: The Role of Data Retention Policies in Cybsesecurtity Preparedness

Providers Beware: OCR Published Three HIPAA Settlements in Two Weeks, Signaling a Ramp Up of HIPAA Enforcement Activity:

Make sure risk assessments, business associate agreements and policies & procedures are in place and up to date.

In a two week period, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published settlements with three different health care providers for violations of HIPAA. The settlements were not insignificant, ranging from $31,000 for a small physician practice, to $400,000 for a federally qualified health center (FQHC), to $2,500,000 for a wireless health services provider. Each of these violations and subsequent settlements should act as a cautionary tale to providers, both large and small, that they must continue to be vigilant in their HIPAA compliance efforts.
Continue Reading OCR Published Three HIPAA Settlements in Two Weeks, Signaling a Ramp Up of HIPAA Enforcement Activity