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Unencrypted Devices Still a Breach Headache

May 13, 2015

The Ongoing Risk Posed by Lost, Stolen Mobile Devices

By , May 12, 2015.

Unencrypted Devices Still a Breach Headache

While hacker attacks are grabbing most of the health data breach headlines so far in 2015, a far more ordinary culprit – the loss or theft of unencrypted computing devices – is still putting patient data at risk.

See Also: PHI Security: The Role of Encryption and Tokenization

Incidents involving unencrypted laptops, storage media and other computing devices are still popping up on the Department of Health and Human Services’ “wall of shame,” which lists health data breaches affecting 500 or more individuals. Among the largest of the most recent incidents is a breach at the Indiana State Medical Association.

That breach involved the theft of a laptop computer and two hard drives from a car parked for 2-1/2 hours in an Indianapolis lot, according to local news website, The Star Press. Information on more than 38,000 individuals, including ISMA employees, as well as physicians, their families and staff, was contained in the ISMA group health and life insurance databases on those devices.

The incident occurred on Feb. 3 while ISMA’s IT administrator was transporting the hard drives to an offsite storage location as part of ISMA’s disaster recovery plan, according to The Star Press. An ISMA spokeswoman declined Information Security Media Group’s request to comment on the breach, citing that there are “ongoing civil and criminal investigations under way.”

A breach notification letter sent by ISMA indicates that compromised data included name, address, date of birth, health plan number, and in some cases, Social Security number, medical information and email address. ISMA is offering those affected one year’s worth of free credit monitoring.

Common Culprit

As of Feb. 27, 51 percent of major health data breaches occurring since 2009 involved a theft while 9 percent involved a loss, according to data presented by an Office for Civil Rights official during a session at the recent HIMSS 2015 Conference in Chicago. Of all major breaches, laptop devices were involved in 21 percent of the incidents, portable electronic devices in 11 percent and desktop computers in 12 percent, according to the OCR data.

Two of the five largest breaches to date on the Wall of Shame involved stolen unencrypted computing devices:

  • A 2011 breach involving the theft of unencrypted backup computer tapes containing information on about 4.9 million individuals from the car of a Science Applications International Corp. employee who was transporting them between federal facilities on behalf of military health program TRICARE.
  • The 2013 theft of four unencrypted desktop computers from an office of Advocate Health and Hospital Corp. in Chicago, which exposed information on about 4 million patients.

Many smaller breaches affecting less than 500 individuals also involve unencrypted computing devices, according to OCR.

Safe Harbor

The thefts and losses of encrypted computing devices are not reportable breaches under HIPAA. That’s why security experts express frustration that the loss and theft of unencypted devices remains a common breach cause.

“It is unfortunate that [encryption] is considered an ‘addressable’ requirement under HIPAA, as many people don’t realize that this does not mean optional,” says Dan Berger, CEO of security risk assessment firm Redspin, which was recently acquired by Auxilio Inc.

Under HIPAA, after a risk assessment, if an entity has determined that encryption is a reasonable and appropriate safeguard in its risk management of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of e-PHI, it must implement the technology. However, if the entity decides that encryption is not reasonable and appropriate, the organization must document that determination and implement an equivalent alternative measure, according to HHS.

Attorney David Holtzman, vice president of compliance at the security consulting firm CynergisTek, says he’s expecting to see soon an OCR resolution agreement with a healthcare provider that suffered several breach incidents caused by their failure to manage the mobile devices used by their employees on which electronic protected health information was stored or accessed.

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N.J. Law Requires Insurers to Encrypt

January 13, 2015

New Requirement Goes Beyond HIPAA

By , January 12, 2015.

N.J. Law Requires Insurers to Encrypt

A New Jersey law that will go into effect in July requires health insurers in the state to encrypt personal information that they store in their computers – a stronger requirement than what’s included in HIPAA .

The new law, signed by N.J. governor Chris Christie last week, was triggered by a number of health data breaches in the state, including the 2013 Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey breach affecting 840,000 individuals. That breach involved the theft of two unencrypted laptops.

The new law states: “Health insurance carriers shall not compile or maintain computerized records that include personal information, unless that information is secured by encryption or by any other method or technology rendering the information unreadable, undecipherable, or otherwise unusable by an unauthorized person.

The law applies to “end user computer systems” and computerized records transmitted across public networks. It notes that end-user computer systems include, for example, desktop computers, laptop computers, tablets or other mobile devices, or removable media.

Personal information covered by the encryption mandate includes individual’s first name or first initial and last name linked with any one or more of the following data elements: Social Security number; driver’s license number or State identification card number; address; and identifiable health information.

Different than HIPAA

“The New Jersey law differs from HIPAA in that it mandates implementing encryption, whereas HIPAA mandates addressing encryption,” privacy attorney Adam Greene of law firm Davis Wright Tremaine says.

The Department of Health and Human Services offers this explanation of the HIPAA encryption requirement on its website: “The encryption implementation specification is addressable, and must therefore be implemented if, after a risk assessment, the entity has determined that the specification is a reasonable and appropriate safeguard in its risk management of the confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic PHI.

“If the entity decides that the addressable implementation specification is not reasonable and appropriate, it must document that determination and implement an equivalent alternative measure, presuming that the alternative is reasonable and appropriate. If the standard can otherwise be met, the covered entity may choose to not implement the implementation specification or any equivalent alternative measure and document the rationale for this decision.”

Greene points out that because the new state law is tougher than HIPAA, “A New Jersey health plan could determine that some of its protected health information does not require encryption under HIPAA, but they will nevertheless be required to encrypt the information under the New Jersey law.”

– Healthcare Info Security

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