Discussion

301 Million Patient Records Exposed: The HIPAA Breach Epidemic Nobody Is Talking About

philipwhiuk: 1. What a wildly capitalist take on the loss of confidentiality for personnel data.2. If you get breached, you have a problem. If everyone gets breached it starts to look more like cost-of-business (and that might be cheaper than a cyber firm that doesn't actually fix the problem [but looks good on audits])3. I wonder if the breached data is entering AI corpuses. Will I be able to ask OpenAI "Does Joe Bloggs, 75 Penn Ave NY have an underlying health conditions I should know about"

GJim: > I wonder if the breached data is entering AI corpuses.One would like to think the creators of AI have been prudent enough to ensure AI output obeys data protection law; however the laissez-faire approach the USA takes to data protection (and the hostility of many Americans on here to the GDPR) suggests otherwise.

nlitened: Unless somebody from management AND engineering goes to jail, it's literally just cost of business.

quercusa: The attack on Stryker used Microsoft InTune to remote-wipe all of Stryker's systems. If you can wipe a system, could you also drop code on it exfiltrate data and credentials?[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47346091

r_lee: I think we're already in the "cost-of-business" stage.the industry standard seems to be:- release "oopsie" statement- engage "cybersecurity firm" to investigate- give out free credit monitoring for a year (fucking worthless)and so far it seems to be working just fine

jawns: Wait, the main takeaway from this article is that cybersecurity sales teams now have great leads?Facepalm.The real takeaway should be that at every level -- government, corporate, healthcare entities, personal -- we need to rethink how we're acting in the face of these disasters.Government should recognize that its current regulations are insufficient and look for ways to refine them.Corporations and health-care entities should be asking themselves, "Do I really need to store this data? If so, how do I store it securely, make my systems less vulnerable to attack, make my personnel more informed about phishing, store it for the minimum amount of time, etc."And we as individuals should be asking ourselves whether so many health-care entities need to store so much data about us.

GJim: > Government should recognize that its current regulations are insufficient and look for ways to refine them.The shear hostility by many people on here to data protection law (hello GDPR) suggests you are going to have a hard time getting such laws passed in the USA.

righthand: Well at least the leaks and irresponsibility have hit the HIPAA level, maybe now some old people will take it seriously? Or will the fallout continue to be normalization of data leaks like the morons in the federal government did for credit reporting agencies?

LastTrain: As with everything in the US, this will be politicized. I wonder which will be the party of “I’m fine with data breaches”

rdtsc: Yup I don’t see any huge downsides here for these companies, and not much incentive to change. The more it happens the more they can point to each other and say “see, it’s not just us”

roywiggins: ai; dr> This isn't a single point of failure - it's a systemic crisis.> One in seven breaches isn't a sophisticated external attack - it's someone inside the organisation accessing data they shouldn't.> These organisations aren't browsing - they're buyinghttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#generated

r_lee: I think the most feasible solution is to make companies liable for damages, not in a light way but rather that every person can sue (or in a class action) for hefty amounts, so that a breach could cost e.g. 100mil+that should incentivize them to actually invest some money in security. right now its just tiny numbers which are easier to just pay off and forget about

ai-x: OTOH, breaches especially Health Data breaches are the most over-rated, hysteria inducing breaches of all time. There is ZERO use for anyone for your health data

tyre: There is a field in a claims form that indicates what type of insurance it is.One of these is CHAMPUS, which indicates that it is for a service member or their family. You can tell which.As a basic case, accumulate these (as in the CHC breach of ~30% of Americans) and you have a nice map of where US military are. Since bases house particular units and types of forces, a nation state can estimate strength and investment in the US military.In a specific case, the response to claims includes patient responsibility (deductible, co-insurance, co-pay.) Add that up for a financial picture, then you’ve got a nice lead list for service members who have money problems.

p2detar: [delayed]

encomiast: This optimism in the face of the current state of government made me chuckle-sob.

righthand: HIPAA data is always talked sternly about. I’m hoping my health worker professional friends can help bring attention to the issue. Who knows if everyone will just roll over.

inetknght: > There is ZERO use for anyone for your health data0You really think that?

esseph: [delayed]

righthand: In my view that stance is becoming bipartisan as tech companies lobby nonsense like “we can’t get left behind China’s AI models so give us all the data!”Democrats and Republicans always think they’re smart by investing in whatever wave of technology. Here we are.

NegativeK: Abortion prosecution or societal ostracization.Streamer doxing.Literally just being trans.HIV fear mongering.Illegal fuckery with your insurance rates.Employment discrimination.Stalking.Racial discrimination.Can you imagine trying to fully trust a mental health professional today? A patient can't see a therapist's notes, but they sure as hell can be breached.There is zero LEGITIMATE use for your breached health data.

ericmay: > What a wildly capitalist take on the loss of confidentiality for personnel data.As opposed to what exactly? A "communist" take on the loss of confidentiality? How might that go?"There's no problem comrade, what are you talking about?"This sounds like a failure of government regulation here, not a failure of a broad economic model.

philipwhiuk: I'm referring to the last few lines for that point - turning this failure of companies and governments into a nothing more than a lame pitch for their sales funnel platform.