3 Things Healthcare Organizations Must Do to Improve Security

The past year has brought some sobering statistics to light regarding healthcare cybersecurity. Despite HIPAA and its strict regulations, reports show a staggering 25% increase in data breaches throughout the industry in the past year.

According to a 2021 Identity Breach Report, 34% of all data breaches recorded in 2020 occurred in the healthcare industry. What’s more, the HIPAA Journal’s 2020 Healthcare Data Breach Report revealed a 25% increase in breaches in this sector during that year. The number of data compromises have doubled compared to six years previous, and have tripled since 2010.

The pandemic only aggravated cyber security vulnerabilities within healthcare organizations as they struggled with the challenges of the virus. This applied not just to the obvious rigors of patient care, but also to the implementation of new technologies like telehealth solutions. A growing dependence on remote work and virtual diagnoses meant practitioners and their staff members were more dependent than ever on electronic transmission of data, which hackers targeted, contributing to the increase in breaches.

As with many industries, an organization’s email servers are a highly-targeted point of entry for malicious actors to infiltrate a network. Major ransomware and phishing attacks can be initiated by the harvesting of a single user’s credentials. Huge breaches have been attributed to these attacks, including the 2021 breach of pharmacy benefit management company CaptureRX (San Antonio, TX), an alleged ransomware incident that compromised the data of nearly 1.7 million individuals. As the industry recovers from the impact of coronavirus, it’s time to reassess how to reduce cyber security risks.