Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will stop providing support for its Windows XP operating system could cause an increased HIPAA risk to certain medical providers. HIPAA generally requires medical providers to adequately safeguard its protected health information. One effect of Microsoft’s decision is that it will no longer be helping to ensure that users of XP are secure from new forms of hacking and malware. Therefore, medical providers using XP are at an increased risk of being attacked and possibly violating HIPAA. To help prevent this, medical providers using Microsoft XP should ensure that their anti-virus software and firewalls are current while beginning to look into upgrading its operating systems.
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