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Crypto Traders Flock to Altcoins Amid Bitcoin Price Malaise … – CoinDesk

With many crypto traderssitting on the sidelines and awaiting news from China, volumes for bitcoin, the market's most highly traded asset, have seen a decline.

Market participants traded 6,670 bitcoins through Bitfinex, one of the world's largest exchanges by volume, in the 24 hours through roughly 21:30 UTC today, more than 50% less than the daily average of 17,900 bitcoins over the last week.

Likewise,volume has declined at major Chinese exchanges Huobi, OKCoin and BTCC, all exchanges whose policies have been affected by directives from that country's central bank.

Against this backdrop, bitcoin's price has stabilized,fluctuating between a daily high of $1,011 reached at 01:15 UTC and a session low of $1,001.00 hit at 07:00 UTC, CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

The 14th February session provided a similar story, as bitcoin prices moved within a slightly larger range between $987.33 and $1,106.44, additional BPI figures reveal.

The rangebound trading that bitcoin has experienced may form part of a broader trend, according to Vinny Lingham, market analyst and CEO of identity startup Civic.

Linghamtold CoinDesk:

"I expect bitcoin to consolidate around $1,000 for a while, maybe a month or even two."

While some might embrace such a period of lower volatility, this reduction in price movement alsoresults in fewer opportunities for traders to profit from the cryptocurrency's price swings.

But while bitcoin's market has settled, many other cryptographic assetshave received tailwinds from the development.

At the time of report, eight out of the top 10 cryptocurrencies on CoinMarketCap (listed in terms of market capitalization) were higher for the day, with monero and dash having experienced the most notable gains.

Monero, a token that powers a blockchain that leverages digital signatures to help preserve the privacy of its users, rose to $13.74 during the session, more than 5.6% higher than the currency's price of $13.01 at 12:04 UTC, CoinMarketCap figures reveal.

At the time of report, monero's token, XMR, was trading at $13.61, 4.6% higher for the session.

Data provided by cryptocurrency trading platform Whaleclub shows the benefit that this particular altcoin has derived as a result of traders' lack of interest in bitcoin.

"We've seen lower volume (both shorts and longs) in the past few days on BTC/USD, with traders moving on to other markets which offer greater volatility," Petar Zivkovski, COO for Whaleclub, told CoinDesk.

He singled out monero's XMR token in particular, indicating that "we see some volume flocking" to this privacy-oriented digital currency.

Dash, a digital currency that offers users privacy and instant transactions, also pushed higher in 15th February. The cryptocurrency climbed to $19.66 during the session, 8.6% higher than the currencys price of $18.10 at 12:04 UTC, according to CoinMarketCap.

At the time of report, dash had fallen to $19.23, representing a 6.2% increase for the day.

Tim Enneking, chairman of Crypto Asset Management, offered similar sentiment.

"We are also moving a bit of money into altcoins," he told CoinDesk.

His take is that this is just the latest example of traders investing in smaller digital currencies when bitcoin prices remain rangebound.

Penguin image via Shutterstock

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Top 6 Bitcoin Mining Pools Signalling SegWit The Merkle – The Merkle

With the bitcoin scalability situation remaining a pressing issue, it is up to the developers to come up with an answer. Segregated Witness is touted as one of the possible solutions, albeit it requires a majority of the networks miners to support it before getting activated. Below is a brief overview of some of the worlds top bitcoin mining pools signalling for SegWit activation right now.

While most people may know Bitcoin India as a cryptocurrency exchange, the company is also running an official mining pool. Albeit this mining pool is very small compared to some of the others on the network, it is good to see Indias exchanges weigh on on the scalability debate. Moreover, to reach the necessary support before SegWit can activate on the network, every little bit helps.

CKPool is another bitcoin mining pool that has been around for quite some time. There are two different pools operated by the team, one of which is used for solo mining. Both entities support SegWit signalling as we speak. The normal mining pools controls 1.2% of the network, whereas the solo pool represents 0.3%. Once again, small percentages will add up in the long run.

The BitClub mining pool is well-known among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It controls 2.3% of the total network hashrate, yet that is not enough to be considered as one of the top 10 bitcoin mining pools. However, that 2.3% can help push SegWit activation over the required majority threshold in the end. BitClub has always been loyal to Bitcoin Core and that situation will not change anytime soon, by the look of things.

One of the oldest bitcoin mining pools in the world goes by the name SlushPool. Albeit it only represents 65% of the total bitcoin network hashrate, Slushpool is an invaluable asset for SegWit supporters. Slush was also one of the very first mining pools to acknowledge the world start signaling SegWit and the code was implemented promptly. Many people see this pools support as vital to the potential activation of SegWit.

While BTCC was one of Chinas largest cryptocurrency exchanges for some time, their mining pool has been growing steadily at the same time. Right now, BTCC represents 7% of the network hashrate albeit that number used to be a bit higher in the past. Then again, more decentralization in the mining world is never a bad thing, that much is certain. It is doubtful BTCC would ever switch allegiances and support Bitcoin Unlimited all of a sudden.

It is anything but surprising to learn BitFury supports Segregated Witness signalling. With its 10.3% of the hashpower, that is a major addition to the growing support for SegWit. Then again, BitFury is only the worlds third-largest mining pool, which means there is still a lot of convincing to do before the SegWit threshold can be reached. Antpool, the worlds largest bitcoin mining pool, said they would not run SegWit without an immediate block size increase. That statement dates back to May of 2016, albeit it seems not much has changed since then.

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Ransomware has exploded thanks to Bitcoin’s anonymity – VentureBeat

Ransomware is one of the oldest cyberthreats, but ithas made a big comeback in the past couple of years because it has become much easier to perpetrate against consumers, businesses, hospitals, and government agencies.

With ransomware, cyber thieves steal a users data and threaten to destroy it unless the user pays them a ransom. One studyby Infobloxfound that ransomware increased 3,500 percent from the fourth quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016. Ransoms paid also went up 10 times during that period. (Heres a chronicle of ransomware attacks).

Chris Young, CEO of Intel Security, said last week at a private dinner and in his keynote speech at the RSA security conference that ransomware was first detected in 1989, but it didnt explode until recently. In the past, it was easier for law enforcement to catch the perpetrator as they tried to pick up the ransom.

It wasnt until the advent of Bitcoin in our society that ransomware was able to take off, Young said. Because now, as an attacker, I can anonymously monetize my target.

Above: Chris Young, CEO of Intel Security, at RSA.

Image Credit: RSA

He added, The weaponization of data becomes a real threat to all of us. Id argue its quite likely to be our next advanced, persistent threat.

Bitcoin, the crypto currency introduced in 2008, enables two parties to exchange money without knowing who the other one is. During the past year, security firm Kaspersky identified ransomware as the biggest cybersecurity threat.

At first, cyber criminals used ransomware schemes against unsuspecting consumers. The criminals stole their passwords, locked down their computers with cryptography, and then demanded ransoms in the hundreds of dollars to unlock the computers. Faced with no choice, the victims paid the ransoms in Bitcoin. And that helped the problem grow and become much more lucrative, saidSteve Grobman, chief technology officer at Intel Security, at the dinner.

The ransomware threat has been growing.A ransomware app even made it into the Google Play store in January.

Young said that the growing number of attack types has also come with new attack surfaces, as the number of devices that we use in our daily lives is growing well beyond computers and smartphones. The Internet of Things devices, such as security cameras or TV webcams, are also vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. And they can be used as stepping stones to larger, more threatening attacks.

Andransomware is moving on to bigger targets. The focus is increasingly on places like hospitals, which have restrictions on what they can do with patient data. The bad guys find out where the computer backups are stored, they penetrate them and encrypt them, and then they hold the data for ransom.

Cyber attackers held an Austrian hotel network for ransom. The criminals demanded $1,800 in Bitcoin to unlock the network while preventing guests from checking in and out of the hotel and locking them out of their guest rooms. The hotel paid up.

A crypto ransomware attack also hit San Franciscos Municipal Transportation Agency as an infection spread across the Muni systems networks, taking down ticketing systems. The criminals asked for $73,000 in exchange for restoration of the Muni data.

Above: Ed Skoudis, instructor at the SANS Institute.

Image Credit: RSA

Ed Skoudis, instructor at the SANS Institute, predicts that the crypto ransomware perpetrators will go after small to mid-sized banks next.

One of the biggest problems in the last couple of years has been the explosion of crypto ransomware, Skoudis said in an RSA talk. Crytpo ransomware is so much more powerful, especially when it uses public key cryptography.

Crytography is useful in enabling secure communications and ecommerce, but there are 150 active families of crypto ransomware today, Skoudis said. Companies say this is one of their biggest fears, he said, and many more increasingly sophisticated attacks against networks are expected.

Young, meanwhile, worries about the attack targets in homes, thanks to the Internet of Things.

The target is now the weapon, Young said. Now we have to turn our attention to data being weaponized against us. What we used to think about protecting we now have to be protectedagainst. Its the strangest irony. The target is now the weapon. Weve given the enemy all of the scale they could possibly want by connecting our homes with smarter, better, faster devices.

Above: No More Ransom helps ransomware victims.

Image Credit: nomoreransom.org

And yes, Im still waiting for some good news on this front.

To prevent ransomware attacks, companies and individuals have to make themselves into harder targets. If one workstation gets attacked, it shouldnt make the whole network and its servers vulnerable.

If your organization gets hit with ransomware, who is going to decide whether to pay the bad guys? he said. Your business principles might get hit by the business reality.

Young said that the fragmented cybersecurity industry must work together.

Were the most fragmented sector in all of IT, he said.

The industry has formed the collaborative Cyber Threat Alliance group, and it has created No More Ransom, a site that helps victims of ransomware recover their data.

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Bitcoin Hash Functions Explained – CoinDesk

Anyone with an interest in bitcoin will have heard the phrase 'cryptographic hash function' at some time or other. But what exactly does it mean, and how is it connected to cryptocurrency?

Hash functions are an essential part of, not only of the bitcoin protocol, but of information security as a whole.

In the following article we'll take a look at some simple examples of how they work, with a simple demonstration, too.

In the abstract, a hash function is a mathematical processthat takes input data of any size, performs an operation on it, and returns output data of a fixed size.

In a more concrete example, this can be used to take a sequence of letters of any length as input what we call a string and return a sequence of letters of a fixed length. Whether the input string is a single letter, a word, a sentence, or an entire novel, the output called the digest will always be the same length.

Acommon use of this kind of hash function is to store passwords.

When you create a user account with any web service which requires a password, the password isrun through a hash function, and the hash digest of the message is stored. When you type in your password to log in, the same hash function is run on the word you've entered, and the server checks whether the result matches the stored digest.

This means that if a hacker is able to access the database containing the stored hashes, they will not be able to immediately compromise all user accounts because there is no easy way to find the password which producedany given hash.

You can experiment with hash values using Python, a programming language installed on Mac and Linux operating systems by default. (This tutorial will assume you're using some version of either OS X or Linux, as using Python on Windows is more complicated.)

First, open a terminal, type python and hit ENTER.

This will put you into the Python REPL, an environment where you can try out Python commands directly as opposed to writing a programme in a separate file.

Then, type the following, pressing ENTER after each line, and TAB where marked:

You have now created a function, hash(), which will calculate and print out the hash value for a given string using the MD5 hashing algorithm. To run it, put a string in between the parentheses in quotation marks, eg:

And press ENTER to see the hash digest of that string.

You will see that calling the hash function on the same string will always generate the same hash, but adding or changing one character will generate a completely different hash value:

In the bitcoin protocol, hash functions are part of the block hashing algorithm which is used to write new transactions into the blockchain through the mining process.

In bitcoin mining, the inputs for the function are all of the most recent, not-yet-confirmed transactions (along with some additional inputs relating to the timestamp and a reference to the previous block).

In the code example above, we've already seen that changing a small part of the input for a hash function results in a completely different output. This property is crucial to the 'proof of work' algorithm involved in mining: to successfully 'solve' a block, miners try to combine all of the inputs with their own arbitrary piece of input data in such a way that the resulting hash starts with a certain number of zeroes.

As a basic demonstration, we could try 'mining' with our Python hash function by manually adding exclamation points after "CoinDesk rocks!" until we find a hash that starts with a single zero.

Of course, solving the hash for a bitcoin block which at the time of writing must start with 18 zeros requires anextremely large amount of computation (and so the combined processing power of all the computers in the network still takes approximately 10 minutes to solve a block).

It's the need for this large amount of processing power that means new bitcoins get mined over a long period of time, not all at once.

In order to earn bitcoins through mining, you need to put in the huge amount of work necessary to solve a block and by earning that reward, you're locking in all of the new transactions into a block, which is added to the permanent record of all previous transactions: the blockchain.

Any crypto basics you'd like explained next? Email: editors@coindesk.com.

Bitcoin on keyboard image via Shutterstock

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Nigerian Bankers Committee Plans to Legalize Bitcoin The Merkle – The Merkle

Quite a few countries are contemplating how they should treat bitcoin moving forward. Cryptocurrency poses intriguing opportunities, yet it is difficult to regulate as there is no centralized entity controlling the ecosystem. Nigerian banks are contemplating to legalize bitcoin, which would give the popular cryptocurrency a significant boost, to say the least.

It is not the first time someone brings up the concept of Nigerian banks legalizing bitcoin. The same idea was proposedseveral months ago. Albert no one saw this as a hint of what the future could hold, it would appear various Nigerian banks are thinking along the same lines. This development caught quite a few people by surprise, even though it makes a lot of sense.

An article appeared in The Inquirer, which talks about how the Nigerian Bankers Committee is studying blockchain technology. That is anything but surprising, as nearly every bank around the world is well aware of what distributed ledgers bring to the table. However, there has not been any major product to come forth from this interest so far. Experts predict a few of these blockchain applications will see the light of day in 2017, albeit that remains to be seen for now.

What is more interesting, however, is how the Nigerian Bank Committee still feels bitcoin poses somewhat of a threat the national financial ecosystem. To be more precise, the group touched upon the concept of dubious virtual currencies flooding the country. It is not hard to see which projects they are talking about, as OneCoinhas become somewhat of a popular concept in Nigeria. Additionally, there is also the MMM Global scheme, which only accepts bitcoin deposits in Nigeria right now.

It is evident the Central bank of Nigeria wants to gain a better understanding of bitcoin and its blockchain technology. That open-minded approach can mean big things for cryptocurrency in the country moving forward. Moreover, it only appears to be a matter of time until Nigeria introduces bitcoin regulation, which could occur as soon as this year. Introducing such a regulation would effectively legalize bitcoin in Nigeria, even though the current is not issued by the countrys central bank.

Nigeria is not the only country in the world looking to regulate and legalize bitcoin. Japan will be doing the same later this year, which will bring a lot more legitimacy to cryptocurrency moving forward. Albeit no one can effectively regulate bitcoin itself, governments can impose specific guidelines for companies dealing with customer funds, either in the national currency or bitcoin. Then again, running a financial business will always be subject to specific regulation and bitcoin enterprises should not be exempt from those rules.

Bitcoin regulation does not have to be a bad thing by any means. Chinas central bank issued a few new regulatory measures over the past few weeks, which has only helped the bitcoin price stabilizes as time progressed. It is unclear what Nigeria will do exactly when it comes to blockchain and cryptocurrency, but it will be an intriguing situation to keep an eye on.

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4 Cryptocurrencies With Much Faster Block Times Than Bitcoin – The Merkle

One thing a lot of people do not like about bitcoin is how it takes an average of 10 minutes before a transaction receives a network confirmation. Various other cryptocurrencies, also known as altcoins, try to improve this block time by quite a margin. Some projects focusing on faster block times are more successful than others, though.

Litecoin is often referred to as the silver to bitcoins gold. Albeit not everyone may see it that way, Litecoin brings some very intriguing developments in the world of cryptocurrency, that much is certain. Compared to bitcoins block time, Litecoin generates network blocks 4 times as fast on the network. It takes an average of 2.5 minutes for this process to complete, which is quite an improvement.

For a cryptocurrency that offers privacy and anonymity features, Monero has proven to be quite a quick altcoin when it comes to generating new blocks on the network. With an average block time of just two minutes, Monero succeeds in providing users with anonymity features at 1/5th of the time bitcoin generates a block, which does not include any anonymity features.

It is interesting to note Monero used to have an even faster block time at one point in time. The developers decreased the block time to 60 seconds when Monero was first launched, yet they reverted it back to 120 seconds once the network started to settle. While 60 second block times may sound more preferable, 120 seconds does the job just fine for Monero.

Many people believe Ethereum is the worlds fastest cryptocurrency in terms of block generation time, but that is not the case It has to be said, Ethereum is somewhat in a league of its, with the average block time sitting at the 14 second mark ever since April of 2016. It is quite an impressive feat to see Ethereum keep the block time so low. Bitcoin users would like to see a similar strategy introduced by the developers, albeit it is doubtful that will happen anytime soon.

When it comes to generating blocks quickly, there is no competition for Ripple right now. Although Ripple is targeting a very different crowd compared to bitcoin,Monero, or the other coins mentioned above, the technology powering this network has proven to be quite solid. The average Ripple network block is generated in as little as 3.5 seconds.

Considering how Ripple is aiming to change the world of finance by collaborating with financial institutions all over the world, that 3.5 second mark is quite important. Blockchain-based assets are designed to make transactions more efficient. Ripple succeeds in allowing for very fast transfers at minimal fees, whereas bitcoin seems to get slower and more expensive until the scalability issue is addressed.

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BitBay Resurfaces with the Most Advanced and Secure Wallet in Cryptocurrency Space – newsBTC

BitBay is a free software program that provides the security you need to protect all of your online transactions, especially at places like Craigslist, Hoobly and eBay Classifieds.

After keeping a low profile for some time, BitBay, the cryptocurrency software suite offering unbreakable smart contracts is now back with the most advanced and secure wallet in cryptocurrency space. The software suite is capable of supporting an entire smart contracting interface with decentralized markets and other features.

BitBay is a free software program that provides the security you need to protect all of your online transactions, especially at places like Craigslist, Hoobly and eBay Classifieds. It removes any centralized services from online transactions and allows buyers to interact directly with sellers safely and securely.

The platform offers unbreakable smart contractsfor important real world applications. These contracts are secured by collateral deposits from both parties, making them unbreakable. Further, there is no fear of fraud as the collateral funds will be burnt in case a party cheats or exits the contract with the intention of defrauding the other.

Arbitrators, biased third parties, escrow and even fees have been eliminated on BitBay due to their smart contracts system. Without any middlemen, it can create coins for cash contracts like a decentralized LocalBitcoins, where cash payments are completely trustless. It can also be used to create employment contracts, decentralized eBay-like delivery contracts, and even barter contracts.

The many user-friendly templates on BitBay let people create smart contracts by just entering few details. The pre- existing templates like Cash for Coins are already being used successfully and many new ones like buy/sell anything contract template are to be added to the platform shortly.

BitBay has a decentralized marketplace in place and the completely anonymous marketis built right into the client which allows users to create their own public and private markets. There is also the option to simply check different contracts already available in the main market.

The BitBay software allows communication between users by supporting email with end to end encryption like Thunderbird and it also supports Bitmessage for a more decentralized option.

Finally, BitBay also plans to launch their secret star feature soon, that will eliminate the cryptocurrencys volatility.

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Centurion Cryptocurrency Launches Today, Offering Extremely Fast Transactions While Supporting – MENAFN.COM

MENAFN Press - 19/02/2017 (MENAFN Editorial) LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Centurion is a unique cryptocurrency launching today on February 9, 2017. The new cryptocurrency draws lessons from Bitcoin and other altcoins to offer an efficient and easy-to-use option for the cryptocurrency community. As the Bitcoin network struggles to clear the transaction backlog while waiting for a scalability solution,Centurion can process and confirm transactions in under 6 minutes.

Also, the cryptocurrency protocol has a block size of 2 MB, which is twice the Bitcoin block size. Just like in the Roman saga, Centurion is the protector of children and the cryptocurrency strives to help kids worldwide through its very own charity Centurion4Children; which will receive an initial donation of 5 million Centurions.

Specifications

Mining and Mining Pools

The cryptocurrency differentiates its users into two distinct groups, the specialist group comprising of experienced cryptocurrency community members who have a better understanding of mining process, software, and various other aspects. The other group consisting of casual users who are not well-versed with the technicalities but are known to use cryptocurrency for transactions and trading purposes.

Centurion4Children

Centurion4Children is donating 5 million Centurion coins to well-established charity organizations. It is also raising funds within the community and through thewebsite. The foundation is already represented in India, as well as Africa and Europe with official charity partnerships being revealed in March, 2017. Centurion4Children' is currently raising funds for following causes:

To cover promotion costs and to kick-start the donations distributed by Centurion4Children, the coin has reserved 50 Million of its tokens.

Centurion will donate 5 million of its reserved coins to charity and the remaining 50% will be used to reward early adopters, investors, related projects and talented individuals within the community working to improve the Centurion cryptocurrency.

Centurion is cryptocurrency that focuses mainly on the ease of use, ease of mining and faster transactions. The platform gives importance to existing cryptocurrency users and newbies alike. It has also partnered with Cryptonetwork ltd to increase usage and adoption of Centurion tokens.

Learn more about Centurion4Children at http://www.centurion4children.foundation

Contact Name:Sharon Kennedy Contact Email: Location:London, UK

Related Links

Centurion

https://vimeo.com/198023903

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Tech giants to support government drive for fair cloud storage contracts – Digital By Default News

Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have committed to providing cloud storage users with fairer contracts, following action by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The three companies are the latest cloud storage providers to improve their terms and conditions following the CMAsreview of compliance with consumer law in the sector. Last year, the CMA secured separate commitments from JustCloud, Livedrive and Dixons Carphone, and BT, Dropbox, Google and Mozy to make changes to their contract terms.

Andrea Coscelli, CMAacting chief executive, said: We are pleased that Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have joined seven previous companies in working with the CMA and agreeing commitments to improve their terms and conditions and, as a result, cloud storage users will benefit from fairer terms which will help them make the right choices when using cloud storage services.

A summary of the separate changes to terms and conditions agreed with each company can be found on the case page.

The CMA has worked with the industry to improve compliance with consumer law. The latest agreed changes bring to an end the CMAs consumer law compliance review into the cloud storage sector. The CMA remains interested in unfair terms and conditions, particularly in the digital economy. Companies in the cloud storage, and other technology-driven sectors, are urged to keep their terms and conditions under review and to continually improve the fairness and clarity of their consumer contract terms.

Increasing need to move from legacy solutions paves the way for consumption-based models

FoI request finds that 42% of council districts in England do not have a BYOD policy in place

New ITO contract will support the councils drive to transform digitally

Clinic aimed at helping organisations understand how cloud can be an enabler on their digital transformation journey

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Cloud computing: Can hospitals manage security better than … – Healthcare IT News

Hospital executives are still concerned about putting health data in the cloud but there is a growing consensus among security specialists that the fears are not as necessary as they once were.

That was among the overarching themes to emerge from the Healthcare IT News Cloud Computing Forum here at HIMSS17 on Sunday.

Nephi Walton, for instance, threw down the gauntlet: Security concerns about the cloud are valid but I challenge you to look at your own organizations and see how secure they actually are.

Walton, a biomedical informaticist at the Washington University School of Medicine, posted that to attendees.

Thats not to say storing personal health information or personally-identifiable information in the cloud is a simple matter.

Beaufort Memorial CIO Ed Ricks said that theres no such thing as a HIPAA-compliant solution.

I always pause when a vendor says they are HIPAA compliant, added Anahi Santiago, CISO of Christiana Care Health System. HIPAA is based on risk management.

Santiago said that risk management requires constant reevaluation of vendors and policies. Chlidrens National Medical Center IT security director Chad Wilson added the devil is in the details of contracting.

You really have to build a relationship with that company and understand their framework, Wilson said.

Ricks, Santiago, Walton and Wilson, its worth noting, all already have applications and data in the cloud. Christiana, in fact, implemented a cloud-first strategy for new apps and technologies.

Anything is doable on the security front, Santiago said, explaining that Christiana demands certifications such as HITRUST or ISO and looks at SOC II reports, among other policies and procedures, from any vendors they work with.

Kristin Chu, director of information services at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center said that ultimately providers responsibility is not all that much different than protecting data anywhere they store it but recommended moving cautiously.

We did it very slowly and vetted it. It was successful over the course of months, Chu said. Cloud is key to our future. My advice: Get in and persevere in the process.

Washington Universitys Walton said that many people in healthcare are inhibited by security concerns but dont even realize how much data they actually have in the cloud already.

Im sure people are targeting Amazon, Google and Microsoft but because they get that all the time theyre more prepared to defend against it, Walton said. Youre hard pressed to match the same security as one of these companies.

HIMSS17runs from Feb. 19-23, 2017 at the Orange County Convention Center.

This article is part of our ongoing coverage of HIMSS17. VisitDestination HIMSS17for previews, reporting live from the show floor and after the conference.

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