Media

Terrorism is once again in the headlines with the suicide-bomber attack at the Istanbul airport late Tuesday that killed 41 and wounded 239 others.

U.S. officials believe the attack was the work of ISIS, though no group has yet taken responsibility.

Most of the ISIS attacks have been suicide or car bombs—with the noted exception of the apparently ISIS-inspired mass shooting at the gay Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12.

Ransomware attacks can shut down hospitals and health care systems by locking out providers' access to records. The Department of Health and Human Services is preparing guidance on how institutions should respond to such attacks and notify patients whose records are compromised.

Two Capitol Hill IT leaders, Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), are urging HHS leaders to think of ransomware as different from other types of cyberattacks.

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers is calling on the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to treat ransomware attacks in the healthcare industry differently than other cyber attacks.

“In the case of a ransomware attack, the threat is not usually to privacy, but typically to operational risks to health systems and potential impacts on safety, and service,” Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas) wrote in a letter to Deven McGraw, deputy director for health information policy at HHS’s Office of Civil Rights.