Part 3: The G20 & DoD Hacks The cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Labs announced this morning that a team of criminal hackers have stolen an estimated total of $1 billion from over a hundred banks in at least twenty-five different countries (including the U.S.), in what security experts are calling one of the largest bank heists in history. Kaspersky representatives are quoted as saying it is “by far the most successful criminal cyber campaign we have ever seen.” Exactly how the hackers gained access to so many bank networks has yet to be disclosed, but some theorize that spear-phishing emails or unauthorized password sharing are possible causes. Then again, the cause might be the same as that of the two hacks we’ll be discussing in this third and final installment—the 2013 G20 Incident and the Department of Defense (DoD) Worm Infection—both of which were the result of mobile storage devices infected with malware.

Part 2: The Snowden Incident In Silicon Valley today, President Obama is hosting a White House summit on Cybersecurity. A gathering of top tech experts will be there to give lectures and provide input on the subject, including Apple CEO Tim Cook. However, a large number of the best-known senior tech executives will be notably absent from the summit—Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo), Larry Page (Google), Eric Schmidt (Google), and even Bill Gates (Microsoft) all chose to decline their invitations. All of them sent corporate information security officers to attend in their steads.

Part 1: The Sony Pictures Hack The recent hack of Anthem, the second largest health insurance provider in the U.S., has once again made the topic of cybersecurity painfully relevant to those who work in the healthcare industry. Initial estimates revealed that as many as 80 million Anthem customers had large portions of their records comprised (possibly more). While Anthem insists that no medical or credit card data was stolen, these records still contained a wealth of personal information (all worth a fortune on any of the darknet black market data exchanges)—customer names, dates of birth, social security numbers, addresses, places of employment, and even income data was stolen in the cyberattack. Not only were customer records compromised, but those of Anthem employees as well. Even their CEO, Joseph Swedish, had his personal information stolen during the breach. Anthem has not yet officially disclosed exactly how the hack occurred, except to say that it was a “very sophisticated cyberattack.”

The last two decades have seen an unprecedented rise in technology both at home and in the workplace. This transition has affected all aspects of our lives, both public and private, and physicians practices are no exception to this statement. While advances in technology have largely been positive for the world of medicine, it's impossible to ignore the fact that a host of new security concerns have come along with this rise in user-friendly systems. When determining which EMR software best suits the needs of your practice, it's important to consider the specific situations and security concerns that your clinic or office will undergo on a daily basis. With that in mind, take a look at some of the most common security concerns affecting doctors' offices today:

Has a virus ever hit your computer networks or EMR software? How about a hard-drive failure, data leak, or someone with unauthorized access to your software (i.e. a hacker)? If you have experienced one or more of these IT issues, then you’re probably no stranger to the disastrous consequences it can have for your practice.