HHS OCR breach portal (HIPAA breaches affecting 500 or more individuals) Primary notice
Posted on the HHS Office for Civil Rights breach portal with a submission date of July 27, 2017.
- Organization as reported
- Plastic Surgery Associates of South Dakota, SD
- Entity type as reported
- Healthcare Provider
- Category as reported
Hacking/IT Incident
- Location of information as reported
- Network Server
- Submission date
- July 27, 2017
- Observed by BreachRecords
- 2026-10-18 16:15 UTC (revision 14111, row:5250)
- Archived copy
- Held in the private archive (provenance)
Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), announced a settlement with Plastic Surgery Associates of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, for several potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Security Rule, following its investigation into a ransomware attack breach by OCR. Ransomware and hacking are the primary cyber-threats in health care. Ransomware is a type of malware (malicious software) designed to deny access to a user’s data, usually by encrypting the data with a key known only to the hacker who deployed the malware, until a ransom is paid. There has been a 264% increase in large breaches reported to OCR involving ransomware attacks since 2018. October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and OCR has been working with health plans, health care clearinghouses, most health care providers and their business associates to raise awareness of the types of cyberattacks occurring and how to improve data security. “Ransomware attacks often reveal a provider’s underlying failures to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule requirements such as conducting a risk analysis or managing identified risks and vulnerabilities to health information,” said OCR Director Melanie Fontes Rainer. “Such failures can make our doctors and hospitals attractive targets for cyberattacks and can lead to break downs in our health care system.” OCR enforces the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules, which set forth the requirements that covered entities (health plans, health care clearinghouses, and most health care providers), and business associates must follow to protect the privacy and security of protected health information. The HIPAA Security Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals' electronic protected health information (ePHI) that is created, received, used, or maintained by a covered entity. It also requires appropriate administrative, physical, and…