Jessica Davis

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has released its guidance to help healthcare organizations handle ransomware attacks, including prevention methods, a detailed description of ransomware and advice on how to respond to a ransomware threat.

Two-thirds of businesses, including organizations in the healthcare industry, wait until a cybersecurity attack before they engage a security vendor or a managed security services provider, according to a recent Ponemon study commissioned by government contractor Raytheon Foreground Security.

Over the last few years, the healthcare industry has had its consciousness raised over hacking and cybercriminals, as cybersecurity has been thrust into the spotlight - especially with the recent surge in ransomware attacks, according to Paula E. Litt, a partner with and the leader of the insurance recovery and advisory practice group at Honigman Business Law Firm.

With the newly-announced Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative Data Challenge, the foundation is offering $25,000 to two teams of entrants who'll work with researchers to expand understanding of the disease and improve the rate of drug testing.

The project, named Genomic Data Commons, is a National Cancer Institute initiative and is central to the National Cancer Moonshot and Precision Medicine Initiative.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality will dedicate nearly $2 million for the creation of the PCOR Clinical Decision Support Learning Network, aiming to address the barriers hindering the incorporation of patient-centered outcomes research into CDS tools.

The vice president took to the stage at Health Datapalooza not just to share his own experiences, but to put out a call to action: While the government has taken great strides to increase access to technology-enabled healthcare, it's still not enough, he said.

Stolen credentials, privilege misuse and miscellaneous errors were the three biggest causes for health data breaches in 2015, according to the 9th annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report released Tuesday.

Sixty percent of healthcare IT security executives are increasing spending for better data protection, according to a recent study. Another 46 percent plan to implement data security tools to catch up with industry best practices.

The healthcare industry accounted for the highest number of data breaches among service industries in 2015, according to a new 2016 Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec that also found ransomware on the rise and increasingly sophisticated attack tactics being perpetrated by organized criminals with extensive resources.