Riddled with data breaches, Healthcare needs encryption
The healthcare industry has seen a sharp increase of data breaches since the onset of Covid-19. As we encouraged minimal in-person interaction to minimize the spread, the rise of Telehealth services grew 46% in 2020. It is known that the medical sector has been slower than others when it comes to leveraging new technology. The lack of data security is apparent as 89% of healthcare providers have suffered some type of data breach within the past two years.
So, what’s the deal? Why is the healthcare industry such a big target for hackers?
The healthcare sector mainly consists of businesses that provide medical services, create medical equipment, and develop the drugs that fill our prescriptions. It is a gold-mine for big data that contains sensitive information about patients like date of birth, addresses, medical records, and so much more. Hackers target the industry with data breaches and ransomware to gain full access of medical information of millions of people. 41% of Americans have had their protected health information or PHI exposed in the last three years. The sector’s biggest challenge is managing and securing large volumes of sensitive data. It is extremely difficult to minimize security breaches, and reduce cyber theft when security is not seen as a priority.
Struggling with strict compliance standards
The nature of information that the healthcare industry collects, is subject to some of the strictest data privacy and compliance standards. Healthcare is unique as it manages large volume data that is constantly changing. Complying with data security standards is a major struggle for healthcare as they use Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR), and adopt new cloud technology. Patient EHRs enable doctors to treat via telehealth, and share data digitally which is encouraged by the HITECH act. Unfortunately, many hospitals and clinics have not implemented a secure method of sharing this information which does not fulfill HIPAA standards.
No security training leads to user errors
This is the fact of life, right? Users cannot manage something effectively without understanding how it works. Approximately 90% of data breaches in 2019 were caused by human error, a drastic increase from 61% two years prior. In general, human error is the leading cause of data breach within an organization. For healthcare, about 40% of employees have received no cybersecurity training whatsoever. This lack of security training is costing the medical sector millions of dollars in damages per year, with the average record stolen costing about $400 each.
Empower medical professionals to implement Encryption software
Healthcare professionals can easily send and receive secure messages with ExchangeDefender Corporate Encryption. Personnel can communicate sensitive data with confidence using a powerful, user-friendly web interface that can auto-detect personal identifiable information (PHI) like patient names, date of birth, lab test results, medical bills, and more! It can prevent accident data leaks by triggering custom policies that the organization creates based on security standards. Using Corporate Encryption will automatically help medical workers comply with HIPAA and HITECH regulations.