ETCO Informs

Hackers in white coats

The integration of technologies attracts attention to segments that until recently would have gone unnoticed. This is the case of the digitization of health records in electronic systems, shared by the network.

Amplified by the collection of personal data promised by the new watches and sensors, they are expected to speed up and increase the accuracy of diagnostics, essential factors in an area where deadlines are often urgent and there is little room for error.

However, this digitalization can also mean a security nightmare for the medical segment. Their databases are rarely properly protected, which creates opportunities for groups specializing in electronic crime.

What's so interesting about a medical record? To begin, generic data. Names, addresses, plans, policies and billing information can be used to create false identities and perform other types of fraud.

Medical records can also be used to forge prescriptions, appointments, hospitalizations, refunds, fraudulent lawsuits and even buy equipment or medicines to resell on the black market. Unlike bank fraud, theft of medical identity is not immediately identified by the patient or the service provider, which gives criminals plenty of time to profit from them.

To make matters worse, the invasion is easy. Many of these networks use, in their administrative systems, old machines, some more than ten years old and very few updates, besides a huge neglect with encryption and backups.

Among service providers, it is common to underestimate the scale of the problem. It is understandable, although it should not be acceptable. In an environment of little technological knowledge, big investments and tight budgets, the decision between investing in a new tomography or hemodialysis device will always seem much more urgent and will present more immediate and palpable results than the investment in structuring or modernizing the administrative firewall. .

With daring worthy of Hollywood, organized crime groups carry out daily attacks on major hospitals and health care providers in the United States, Europe and Japan. Hackers also insert malicious code thumb drives into computers, steal backup tapes, laptops and hard drives and clone databases.

In a recent case, some hospitals in California outsourced the service of transcribing their files to companies in India and Pakistan, and were then blackmailed by their own suppliers.

While leaking celebrity photos is taking over the world and raising questions about the quality or reliability of cloud services, it is undoubtedly the best way out. Medical offices and hospitals can adequately protect their patient data through anonymous and private storage services, similar to the process used in financial services.

Theft is just one problem. Another major concern is piracy and counterfeiting of equipment. According to the World Health Organization, it reaches 8% of medical devices worldwide. For now they are still restricted to simple products, such as condoms, contact lenses and surgical instruments. But soon piracy will come to electronics. It is not at all comfortable to think of a software problem causing a failure of a survival system, right in the middle of surgery.

You need to be aware of this type of fraud. At best, the injured patient will have to deal with the bureaucracy of health plans to prove that he is innocent, and even so, he may have, in his records, information that compromises future jobs or financing.

Ultimately, we will all pay, when we receive the transfer of the security account in the increase in health insurance prices and in the precariousness of public services.

Luli Radfahrer

Source: Folha de S.Paulo

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Federal Highway Police intensifies work on the country's north to south borders

The Federal Highway Police (PRF), in partnership with the Federal Revenue Service and the National Health Surveillance Agency, launched, throughout the month of September, numerous actions on the Brazilian borders.

In addition to the permanent presence that already existed on the southern limits of the country, inspections at the northern and western borders of Brazil were reinforced. With these new barriers intensified, the actions of Operation Sentinel, a strategic project of the Federal Government to fight transnational crimes, gains a new security belt that has already been working.

From Amapá to Rio Grande do Sul, the number of PRF operational units, located at points close to the borders, received reinforcement from agents from other states and groups specialized in fighting crime.
Trafficking in drugs, medicines and weapons, illegal entry of foreigners, evasion of foreign exchange, contraband and embezzlement, theft and theft of vehicles, environmental crimes were some of the illicit combated during the actions. The result is impressive: approximately 13 million reais were seized in smuggled goods - among which 57236 units of medication; 500 liters of fuel; 4529 liters of drinks and 11427 electronics units. In addition, 60 wild animals were also apprehended; thousand cubic meters of wood; 161
firearms among other materials.

Source: Social Communication Office of the Federal Highway Police

Pharmacy owners are convicted of federal program fraud

Justice condemned the owners of a pharmacy in Marília (SP) for defrauding a federal program that subsidizes medicines sold to the population at lower prices. Losses to public coffers amount to R $ 38,4 thousand.

An inspection carried out by the SUS National Audit System to verify the program's execution in the last months of 2009 found that sales were being made in disagreement with the rules. Among the irregularities are falsification of signatures and commercialization of medicines without a prescription.

The owners of the pharmacy were sentenced to two years in prison, but the sentence was converted into service to the community, in addition to a fine of ten minimum wages, in the amount in effect at the time of the facts. They will also have to return the wrongly received money to the federal government.

How it works

The federal program establishes the sale of cheaper drugs to the population in private pharmacies. Consumers pay only a portion of the price and the rest is paid by the government in transfers to partner establishments, according to the prices in a single table.

In order to receive the amounts, merchants must follow a series of requirements, including the collection of signature and personal data from customers in tax coupons and the maintenance of correct information about the drugstore in the Ministry of Health's register.

Source: G1

 

 

ETCO will participate in seminar on combating piracy in health

Event, which takes place on September 9, at Amcham, will discuss the impacts of piracy on the health of the population

On September 9, ETCO's Executive President, Roberto Abdenur, will mediate at the Seminar to Combat Piracy in Health, held by the American Chamber of Commerce Brazil-United States (Amcham).

At the event, the reality of piracy in the area and the impacts of this practice on the health of the population, the country's economy and the competitiveness of companies will be discussed.

The seminar is part of the activities of the Subgroup to Combat Piracy in Health at Amcham and will also count on the presence of the executive president of the Brazilian Association of the High Technology Industry of Medical-Hospital Equipment, Products and Supplies, Carlos Goulart; Lilly's global counterfeit drug operations manager, Grant Lindman; and the head of the Division for the Suppression of Smuggling and Misuse of the Internal Revenue Service, Alan Towersey; besides senator Humberto Costa (PT / PE).

Data: September 9th - 8:30 am to 12:XNUMX pm
Location: American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham)
Address: Rua da Paz, 1.431, São Paulo (SP)
More information: hector.modesto@amchambrasil.com.br