Healthcare Industry Hardest Hit

According to a report from the Ponemon Institute, the cost of a lost or stolen record in the healthcare industry is over double that of other industries. Security Week reports that cost to be $363 as opposed to the average of $154, with the average breach having a total cost of $3.8 million. This has led the online magazine for Internet and enterprise security news to report the headline “Data Breach Costs Rise, Healthcare Industry Hardest Hit”.

But what is driving this massive increase in security breaches and their cost in this vital industry? As with many industries, it is the adoption of technology and human interaction with that technology that is creating new challenges.

Healthcare is Becoming Digital

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinic Health Act, passed by congress in 2009, encourages healthcare providers to digitize records. While good news for patients who will ideally be able to access their medical records from anywhere in the world, this process is not only increasing the volume of digital records, it is increasing the number of endpoints required to manage them. Advances in technology are putting a mobile device in every caregiver’s hands, but this is putting great strain on healthcare provider IT teams to keep up with a constant barrage of attacks on these endpoints by viruses and malware deployed by cybercriminals hoping to gain access to sensitive information.

Providers are Retaining Sensitive Patient Data

And speaking of sensitive information, gone are the days when your doctor knew your medical history from memory and kept a back-up copy in a file folder behind the reception area. Today, with electronic billing and digitized healthcare records, more and more sensitive patient data is being retained on networked computer systems. This has made healthcare provider infrastructure an attractive target for cybercriminals.

It’s Getting Cloudy (and Mobile-y)

InformationWeek predicts that by 2020, 80% of healthcare data will pass through the cloud at some point in its lifetime. Patients are becoming more technologically savvy and that means the use of mobile apps to access healthcare systems and records. Providers can only be so vigilant with the implementation of cloud security and BYOD policies because all it takes is one compromised device for a significant breach to occur.

We’re Only Human

While healthcare providers can secure systems and put all of the “detect and respond” technology they can buy in place, one of the biggest threats to their security is the very thing that makes them great – their employees. Providing healthcare to large numbers of patients can result in a very fast-paced and stressful environment. Workers can suffer from fatigue and distractions. This can lead to disaster since all it takes is one wrong click on one malicious link to compromise an entire infrastructure.

A Solution to All of These Challenges

I mention “detect and respond” solutions because while being mildly effective at alerting healthcare infrastructure administrators to attacks AFTER they happen, these traditional antivirus and malware detection solutions will never PREVENT the attacks that come as a result of these new healthcare industry technology challenges. Only a “preventive” solution that scans and detects the characteristics of files to locate potentially malicious files BEFORE they execute will guard against these new challenges.

For this reason, healthcare providers should seek a solution that uses an artificial intelligence and algorithmic science engine to scan every file on every endpoint in their healthcare infrastructure instead of one that simply alerts them once a breach has occurred. By deploying such a solution, healthcare providers can truly secure every endpoint in their infrastructure. This means regardless of whatever “detect and respond” solutions they have in place, no matter how many digital records their team processes, and no matter how many times employees click on something they shouldn’t, a “preventive” solution will have them covered because files are quarantined BEFORE they execute, stopping threats BEFORE they can do damage.

Photo by Darko Stojanovic via Pixabay