Here’s a link to the Week in Congress’s report on this week’s activities on Capitol Hill. It’s worth noting that the Senate confirmed the President’s nomination of Scott Gottlieb to be Food and Drug Commissioner, which is an important role in the health care industry.

Yesterday, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R Utah) announced that he is leaving Congress at the end of June. Rep. Chaffetz has done a good job chairing the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee since the beginning of 2016. He has lead the bipartisan charge on the Postal reform act (H.R. 756).  The Washington Post reports that Congressman Trey Gowdy (R SC), a well know figure on Capitol Hill, is favored to take the gavel from Rep. Chaffetz.

Health Data Management reports that few U.S. healthcare organizations were affected by the WannaCry worm.

Lee Kim, director of privacy and security for HIMSS North America, contends that there have been anecdotal reports by healthcare providers around the world—including the U.S.—of infections affecting their computers and medical devices. And, she says because there are multiple variants of the WannaCry ransomware, it is still a very serious international cyber threat.

The ransomware is rapidly changing, and there are multiple variants—at least 65 variants of the WannaCry ransomware have been confirmed at this time,” according to Kim, who says it is likely

Kim calls WannaCry the world’s first ransomworm—ransomware with the ability to self-propagate without user intervention or interaction. At the same time, she notes that the “success” of the WannaCry ransomware is “based upon one tried and true fact—many individuals and organizations do not patch their systems in a timely manner.”

It makes sense to use good email hygiene, timely patch and continuously back-up computerized data.