By now you have probably seen that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) fined Cignet healthcare a whopping $4.3M for, and I believe this is a legal term, being total egotistical assholes. (Because “willfull neglect” just doesn’t have a good ring to it).

This is all over the security newsfeeds, despite it having nothing to do with security. It’s so egregious I suggest that, if any vendor puts this number in their sales presentation, you should simply stand up and walk out of the room. Don’t even bother to say anything – it’s better to leave them wondering.

Where do I come up with this?

The fine was due to Cignet pretty much telling HHS and a federal court to f* off when asked for materials to investigate some HIPAA complaints. To quote the ThreatPost article:

Following patient complaints, repeated efforts by HHS to inquire about the missing health records were ignored by Cignet, as was a subpoena granted to HHS’s Office of Civil Rights ordering Cignet to produce the records or defend itself in any way. When the health care provider was ordered by a court to respond to the requests, it disgorged not just the patient records in question, but 59 boxes of original medical records to the U.S. Department of Justice, which included the records of 11 individuals listed in the Office of Civil Rights Subpoena, 30 other individuals who had complained about not receiving their medical records from Cignet, as well as records for 4,500 other individuals whose information was not requested by OCR.

No IT. No security breach. No mention of security issues whatsoever. Just big boxes of paper and a bad attitude.

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