WSJ Finds Nursing Homes, Senior Care Not Immune to Hacker Attacks

Your company might not be Target, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become the target of a hacker attack, potentially exposing residents’ personal information to the public.

Hackers aren’t just after credit card and banking information, but nursing homes lacking security for the documents they store have recently been found potentially to put resident information at risk, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

“Computer-security researchers have discovered on a website documents that could allow hackers easily to obtain electronic medical records and payment information from health-care providers,” the WSJ writes. “The documents—found by two cybersecurity firms on a site commonly used by hackers—detail the type of equipment used in computer networks, the Internet addresses for computers and other devices, and the passwords to network firewalls run by health-care providers such as nursing homes, doctors’ offices and hospitals.”

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Further, the WSJ conducted a search finding information on the site for three area nursing homes—unbeknownst to the providers.

“A search by The Wall Street Journal of the website, 4shared.com, turned up information from three nursing homes: the Bronx Center for Rehabilitation & Healthcare in New York; the Glengariff Healthcare Center in Glen Cove, N.Y.; and the Campbell Hall Rehabilitation Center in Campbell Hall, N.Y…. The 4shared.com site is a free file-sharing site, one of several where hackers go to dump data, security experts said. The site didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

The providers had different responses to the WSJ informing them of their online; some are protected by document encryption that prevents hackers from accessing the information contained in health records.

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But the finding could be somewhat of a wake up call for owners and operators who have not updated their cybersecurity measures, the WSJ writes.

“The bad guys in the cyberuniverse have definitely set their sights on health-care records,” Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, a privacy and data-protection research firm, told the WSJ.

Read the WSJ article.

Written by Elizabeth Ecker

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