Healthcare Security

Following recent healthcare data breach, data security is back in the national spotlight. Healthcare data breaches not only create financial vulnerabilities for companies and consumers, but they can also pose serious medical threats due to tampered medical histories of affected patients.

While healthcare data breaches have not received as much media attention as the hacks against the national retailers, healthcare breaches could potentially have much greater personal affect than hacks perpetrated in other industries.

What Makes Healthcare Data so Vulnerable?

Although data breaches in any industry pose great threats, healthcare data breaches have the potential to inflict greater financial and personal consequences on clients and companies. Here are some of the main concerns when it comes to healthcare breaches.

1. Health companies face unique challenges in transferring health records securely.

Many healthcare companies are still inexperienced in upholding and maintaining the secure transfers of their Electronic Health Records (EHRs), and subsequently their records may be more vulnerable. While these healthcare companies may have the necessary technology to create secure records, others are still inexperienced in the necessary security practices to withstand trained hackers.

2. Healthcare companies need to refocus their infrastructure to protect against breaches.

Many healthcare companies are still learning how to protect and prevent against data breaches. Unlike credit card companies and banks that have established measures of quickly recognizing fraudulent activity and putting a stop to it, healthcare companies can take months to notice errors—if they notice them at all.

“Cybercriminals tend to think of healthcare organizations as soft targets. Historically, they haven’t invested much in IT, and security specifically.  Knowing that healthcare companies are seen as easier targets should give these companies the necessary motivation to improve their security practices.

3. The consequences of healthcare breaches are much more severe.

While the consequences of identity theft can be expensive and frightening, the impact of healthcare data breaches are often more expensive and may even have the potential to be lethal. In addition to the financial threat, many hackers of healthcare records are tampering with these medical records in order to make a higher profit (mostly through the reselling of prescription drugs). While the consequences of hacks related to accessing and selling drugs seem obvious, there is also potential for these hacks to lead to life-threatening changes on medical records (including past surgeries, allergies, and drug interactions) posing a great threat to your medical care in an emergency.

What Can Healthcare Providers Do?

Healthcare companies have sometimes neglected to deploy even the most basic enterprise security measures. Without proper security checkpoints, these companies make themselves more vulnerable to hacks and potentially put their clients’ most important data (social security numbers, medical records, credit card information) at great risk. However, in order to avoid these attacks in the future, healthcare organizations must take this opportunity to begin prioritizing better security practices and improve the face of healthcare security from here on out.