Cyber Threats and the Risks to the Healthcare Industry

In the world of the digital era, cyber threats are becoming one of the major issues faced by several organizations. Several sensitive records are being exposed through data breaches and used for multiple illegal purposes by the criminals. Similarly, healthcare industries are in the highest threat as it holds medical data of many patients, which is attracting the ecosystem of the criminals. Data breach in such industries not only has dramatic effects on the patients whose data are being disclosed, but it also affects the reputation & finance of the company. In 2013, a cyber security company issued a record of about 30 million Americans whose personal health information has been disclosed or breached since 2009.

With the large migration process from paper-based documents to electronic health records over the years, several healthcare industries are in the risk of cybercriminal attacks. Reportedly, Experts believe that medical identities are considered more valuable in the criminal ecosystem than any financial identities. One possible way to protect medical data from healthcare industry is to use Endpoint Management Software that analyzes the network devices and allows only the ones that fulfill security-specific policies.

One of the biggest problems of the healthcare industry are many of them are not aware of main cyber threats. These industries only realize how they are prone to such cybercriminal attacks after a series of data breaches that has already occurred. The causes of major healthcare data breaches are data theft, unauthorized access, improper record disposal, loss of unencrypted digital devices like laptops, PCs, mobile phones containing Protected Health Information (PHI). In the record of around 200 healthcare data breaches that occurred in 2013, 7 million PHI data has been exposed, increasing up to 137% as compared to data breaches in 2012.

Conclusion

With the increasing rate of medical data theft from health care industries, it will be a wise decision to find a solution before facing the cyber threats & risks. Endpoint Protection management is one of the effective ways that will definitely protect the medical information by timely accessing the threats. It will not only save the time but also the processing power and money.