The Office of Civil Rights may not have received more federal resources to do their job, but their efforts to better leverage technology and centralize activities will enable their enforcement goals, said Iliana L. Peters, JD, OCR’s senior advisor for HIPAA compliance and enforcement, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the OCR’s joint conference, “Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security,” on Sept. 24.

The growing amount of data along with more and more mobile devices are adding up to big cybersecurity problems for healthcare. Almost half (43 percent) of major breaches targeted healthcare data in 2013.

Researchers at Dartmouth College have developed a bracelet that authenticates users continuously while they are using a terminal—and automatically logs them out after they leave the computer.

The 2014 Verizon Breach Investigations Report gathered the data from more than 63,000 cybersecurity incidents to get descriptive statistics and trending. Stephen Brannon of the Verizon Cyber Intelligence Center presented the latest results and associated recommended controls at Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security, a program hosted by the Dept. of Health & Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights and the National Institute of Standards and Technology held in Washington D.C. on Sept. 23.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s voluntary framework for reducing cyber risks to critical infrastructure, released earlier this year, can assist providers in achieving their security goals, according to panelists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Office of Civil Rights’ joint conference, “Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security,” on Sept. 23.

The historically closed systems of healthcare organizations now are exposed to a growing number of medical devices, smartphones, portable devices and other external risks, changing the security landscape of the industry, Darren Dworkin, CIO of Cedars-Sinai Health System said at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Office of Civil Rights’ joint conference, “Safeguarding Health Information: Building Assurance through HIPAA Security,” on Sept. 23.

Major breaches most often occur within organizations that lack comprehensive risk analyses, said Jocelyn Samuels, the new director of the Department of Health & Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.

A Florida hospital is facing its third data breach in two years.