CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—The 13th Academic Medical Center Security & Privacy Conference brought together compliance, security and operational management professionals to discuss pressing issues related to privacy and risk management. Womble Carlyle attorneys Allen O'Rourke and Kurt Stakeman both spoke at the conference, which is presented by the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA).

O'Rourke gave a presentation titled "WannaCry and Other Emerging Trends in Cyber-Attacks Against Healthcare Institutions"

This presentation provided an overview of emerging cybersecurity threats against healthcare institutions and discussed future implications for business and legal risk management. In particular, the presentation offered a detailed explanation of the WannaCry ransomware attack of May 12 that compromised 16 hospitals in the UK's National Health Service. Click here to read O'Rourke's recent client alert on the WannaCry attack.

Stakeman took part in a panel discussion titled, "Being Prepared for the Worst: When It Doesn't Just Hit the 'FAN', It Destroys the 'FAN'."

Managing security and privacy programs in an enterprise as complex as an Academic Medical Center is a huge undertaking, but dealing with a major breach can quickly turn any organization upside down, threatening to destroy its FAN – Finances, Accreditation, and Notoriety. When you have an incident that demands cross-functional response, do you have a comprehensive response plan? The panel shared their perspectives on how to prepare your organization to deal with one of those worst-case scenarios.

Stakeman was joined by Tatiana Melnik of Melnik Legal PLLC, JT Moser of Wake Forest Baptist Health and Derrick Whisel of Internetwork Engineering.

The 13th AMC Security & Privacy Conference took place June 12-14 at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill.

Allen O'Rourke represents clients in cybersecurity preparedness and data breach response. He also defends clients faced with civil litigation, regulatory action, or government investigations related to data breaches and cyber-attacks. Before joining Womble Carlyle, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, where he focused on cybercrime.

Kurt Stakeman is a white collar criminal defense attorney and a former prosecutor. His work is particularly focused on representing corporate victims in embezzlement, internal theft and employee drug use cases.

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