{"id":207845,"date":"2026-05-01T14:42:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T18:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/maine-law-requires-hospitals-to-enact-cybersecurity-plans\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:25:08","slug":"maine-law-requires-hospitals-to-enact-cybersecurity-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/maine-law-requires-hospitals-to-enact-cybersecurity-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine Law Requires Hospitals to Enact Cybersecurity Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maine Law Requires Hospitals to Enact Cybersecurity Plans<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.govtech.com\/health\/maine-law-requires-hospitals-to-enact-cybersecurity-plans<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-01 14:42:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.govtech.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

A new law in Maine requires all licensed hospitals in the state to create and maintain cybersecurity plans aligned with federal standards beginning next year.The law \u2014 which the governor signed in April \u2014 is intended to reduce clinical risk and ensure hospital operations continue when a cyber incident happens. This comes after two separate attacks on Maine hospitals in May and June of 2025. Five hospitals, along with an unknown number of outpatient clinics and doctors\u2019 offices, experienced an outage of communications, lifesaving equipment and vital tools.In response, Maine Rep. Julie McCabe introduced HP 1418. Those attacks impacted at least one-third of the state\u2019s residents, she told the Legislature\u2019s Health and Human Services Committee in February, noting that the full impact is unknown. Outages lasted for weeks, and clinicians lost access to communications systems, forcing a shift to paper processes and in-person workarounds.Routine care such as cancer screenings were missed, while more complex treatments were canceled when equipment could not operate. Prescription systems went offline, requiring patients to travel to pick up handwritten scripts. Critical technologies like CT scans and newborn monitoring were also unavailable.McCabe said that \u201cwe cannot outrun\u201d cybersecurity threats, and the bill was designed to \u201charden incident response.\u201dThe new law requires annual cybersecurity training for all staff, annual penetration testing and tabletop exercises, and written cybersecurity incident planning that will be audited each year. It also calls for mutual aid planning among providers, updated paper charting procedures for downtime, and backup communication strategies for continuity of care.Hospitals are also required to report on incidents dating back to 2024, as a look back will help create future resilience, McCabe said. After-action reports will be required going forward, and the Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with taking any incident-related patient complaints.Health-care organizations are at the top of cyber attackers\u2019 lists, according to the latest Internet Crime Complaint Center report, as they house a variety of high-value data that can be sold and held for ransom. Maine\u2019s hospitals include nonprofit, community and private hospitals, with strong system consolidation, and the state runs behavioral health hospitals. All operate within state and federal frameworks, and most rely on federal or state funding.Dr. Christian Dameff of UC San Diego Center for Healthcare Cybersecurity spoke during the public testimony period, saying he was in favor of the Maine legislation. He has researched the topic for more than 15 years.\u201cThe simple reason for [attacks] is that health care is increasingly dependent on critical connected technologies to provide care,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen patients are fighting deadly infections, suffering from massive trauma or suffering from heart attacks \u2014 minutes and sometimes seconds matter.\u201dHe said that criminals are attacking via poor peripheral controls coupled with social engineering through phishing and smishing. They then steal credentials, break into a system and wait for a few weeks to figure out how to make the most money from the attack. They are taking advantage of outdated patching and inconsistent security patches, Dameff said, and the new law can help to lessen cyber risk and its impact.<\/p>\n

Rae D. DeShong is a Texas-based staff writer for Government Technology and a former staff writer for Industry Insider \u2014 Texas. She has worked at The Dallas Morning News and as a community college administrator.<\/p>\n

See More Stories by Rae D. DeShong<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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