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Cyber Breaches Continue at an Alarming Rate in the Health Care Industry
Health care records are a hot commodity among hackers. According to James Scott, co-founder and
senior fellow at the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) in Washington D.C., the price tag for an electronic health record is 100 times more than a stolen credit card. And that explains why hackers are targeting this industry more than ever.
According to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) under Health and Human Services, hackers were able to gain access to more than 113 million medical records in 2015. The healthcare industry is bleeding an estimated $5.6 billion per year because of these attacks.
Meanwhile, the Raytheon|Websense Security Labs 2015 Healthcare Drill-Down report showed that the healthcare industry responded to 340% more attacks than any other industry in 2015. One in every 600 of those attacks involved advanced malware. In addition to the malware threat, the industry was also 74% more likely to feel the impact of phishing scams this past year.
Because of the lack of investment in security, it is relatively easy for even beginning hackers to find a way in to the system of a healthcare provider. As ICIT reports, healthcare systems typically have old backdoors that can be found using exploit kits. Hackers also take advantage of compromised user accounts to penetrate and exploit a system.
Once a hacker is in, they can create their own backdoors to gain an ongoing presence across the organization’s network. They then map out the network, identify the data they want, and take it. If their activity isn’t detected, the hacker will continue to take data as it becomes available.
The number of attacks and breaches is disturbing. It shows just how valuable our health information is on the dark web. As more healthcare facilities move to electronic records, the attacks will continue to rise until the focus is placed on cyber security and cyber governance solutions along with security awareness training for employees. Find out how you can protect yourself by contacting the experts at Pathlock Technologies.