Some doctors, especially those over 50, resist transitioning to cloud computing and electronic health records (EHR) because they worry about the safety of storing patients’ medical records online or on servers. Studies have shown that hackers, malware and viruses notwithstanding, it’s safer, in the long run, to store patients’ medical records electronically than in a…

We talk a lot about the kind of damage that hackers can do if they manage to infiltrate a company’s network. We talk about the havoc that someone could wreak if he stole or found a laptop with company information on it. But we often gloss over or completely neglect to mention the devastation that…

Maybe Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary “Sicko” made an impression on the US government, or maybe the rising cost of Medicare forced them to find a better way of doing things. Regardless of what motivated the change, if all goes well, it could be a welcome one. Physicians in the US have long lamented that they…

By now, most people have heard about the data breaches of MasterCard and Visa cardholders’ account information. It’s been reported that one and a half million Visa and MasterCard customers’ accounts could be at risk. But according to Global Payments, the company that processes credit card transactions for Visa and MasterCard, in a press release…

Some of us have become so accustomed to the convenience of the Internet that we take it for granted. We do the same with our computers and mobile devices, assuming that the information we store on them will remain forever until we decide to delete it or move it elsewhere. Not so. Forget about hackers…

Protecting patient privacy is essential to any healthcare facility that wants to stay in business. In this era of electronic medical records (EMR) and health information exchanges (HIE), keeping patient information safe from the nefarious and the just plain nosy is difficult but not impossible. Small dental and medical practices have to ensure that they’re…

Almost everyone has his own blog these days. Many people use Google Blogger because it’s easy and free. With so many people out there who started their own businesses after losing their jobs during the recession, Blogger hosts dozens of professional blogs. Unfortunately, Blogger also hosts dozens of spam accounts, and Facebook doesn’t like that….

If your company uses Remote Desktop, this warning is for you. An update for Microsoft’s MS12-020 is available and should be installed right away. According to a bulletin posted by Microsoft, there’s a vulnerability in the implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Specifically, “This issue is potentially reachable over the network by an attacker…

Everyone wants to believe that his health records are secure. They store more than medical history. Names, birth dates, addresses and social security numbers are all a part of each patient’s complete medical record. It’s unfortunate, but quite often, that information, when stored at a small health care facility, ends up in unscrupulous hands. A…

In the United States, International Women’s Day is akin to Mother’s Day. It’s a day when men show their appreciation for the women in their lives by buying flowers or taking them out to dinner or whatever makes sense for their relationships. But in other countries, it remains what it originally started out as, a…