The robot, I'm told, is on its way. Any minute now you'll see it. We can track them, you know. There's quite a few of them, so it's only a matter of time. Any minute now. Ah, and here it is. Far down the hospital hall, double doors part to reveal the automaton. There's no dramatic fog or lighting—which I jot down as "disappointing"—only a white, rectangular machine about four feet tall. It waits for the doors to fully part, then cautiously begins to roll toward us, going about as fast as a casual walk, emitting a soft beep every so often to let the humans around it know it's on a very important quest.
Dr. Google has always been a bit of a quack, doling out ever shoddier medical advice with every passing search result. Search the symptoms of a rash and somehow, someway, you will inevitably come to believe you have cancer. Now, the search engine is trying to bring some much-needed validity to the world of health-related searches with a new database of 400 commonly searched medical conditions that have been extensively fact-checked by doctors at the Mayo Clinic. Google announced the news in a blog post Tuesday, saying that it will now surface these pre-vetted facts at the top of its search results, in hopes of getting people to the right information faster.
Late-occurring signs of declining neurocognitive function proved to be highly specific and highly likely markers of impending death in patients with advanced-stage cancer, investigators reported.
Weak security is being blamed for the mammoth hack of one of the nation's largest health insurance providers, which has put the private data of 80 million people at risk. Investigators are focused on weak security for login credentials, as the hackers are believed to have accessed Anthem Inc.'s information by stealing the company system administrator's access information. "Anthem's primary security sin may not have been the lack of encryption, but instead improper access controls," security researcher Ken Westin wrote in a blog post. Hackers were able to get the credentials of five different Anthem tech workers, the country's second-largest health insurer, The Associated Press reported Saturday.
Insurers aren't required to encrypt consumers' data under a 1990s federal law that remains the foundation for health care privacy in the Internet age — an omission that seems striking in light of the major cyberattack against Anthem. Encryption uses mathematical formulas to scramble data, converting sensitive details coveted by intruders into gibberish. Anthem, the second-largest U.S. health insurer, has said the data stolen from a company database that stored information on 80 million people was not encrypted. The main federal health privacy law — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — encourages encryption, but doesn't require it.
The massive computer breach against Anthem, the nation's second-largest health insurer, exposes a growing cyberthreat facing health-care companies that experts say are often unprepared for large attacks. Hackers gained access to the private data of 80 million former and current members and employees of Anthem in one of the largest medical-related cyber-intrusions in history. Authorities said the breach, which was discovered late last month and disclosed this week, did not involve private health records or credit card numbers but did expose Social Security numbers, income data, birthdays, and street and e-mail addresses.