Security News
Cloud-first security firm Wandera reports that malicious network traffic is the highest cybersecurity risk for hospitals and other healthcare providers and affects 72% of all organizations. The new report, "Cybersecurity in the Healthcare Industry," ranked phishing and outdated operating systems as the other top risks.
New research from RiskRecon and the Cyentia Institute pinpointed risk in third-party healthcare supply chain and showed that healthcare's high exposure rate indicates that managing a comparatively small Internet footprint is a big challenge for many organizations in that sector. There is a silver lining: gaining the visibility needed to pinpoint and rectify exposures in the healthcare risk surface is feasible.
Only 44% of healthcare providers, including hospital and health systems, conformed to protocols outlined by the NIST CSF - with scores in some cases trending backwards since 2017, CynergisTek reveals. The report also found that healthcare supply chain security is one of the lowest ranked areas for NIST CSF conformance.
This acquisition further enhances RLDatix's Applied Safety Intelligence framework by helping healthcare delivery organizations comply with global accreditation standards while ensuring the safe and effective use of medical equipment―a fundamental component of patient safety. "Proper usage of medical equipment is a critical component of patient safety and compliance," said Jeff Surges, CEO of RLDatix.
While COVID-19 has proven the healthcare industry's overall resilience, it has also increased its cybersecurity risk with new and emerging threats. The rapid adoption and onboarding of telehealth vendors led to a significantly increased digital footprint, attack surface, and cybersecurity risk for both provider and patient data, a new report released by SecurityScorecard and DarkOwl has shown.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals have increased their reliance on the internet to carry out their job. Healthcare under attack: What about cyber awareness?
As Americans weigh their comfort level on what medical services require in-person visits with a physician or healthcare provider, telehealth options have skyrocketed as a popular alternative, providing convenience and access at a time when many are canceling appointments out of an abundance of caution. Millennials are statistically more likely than any other generation to continue using telehealth options after the pandemic has passed, followed by Gen X. In a hypothetical situation where they needed medical care, 25 percent of Americans would not consider using a telehealth solution for any of the appointments or procedures types presented - this number is significantly higher among Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation.
While there has been an uptick of attacks on healthcare organizations due to coronavirus, a 2019 Healthcare Data Breach Report found more healthcare records were breached in 2019 than in the six years from 2009 to 2014, indicating that the rise of threats to healthcare records has been an ongoing trend. Healthcare organizations need to understand the interconnected relationship between cybersecurity and patient care.
Despite the COVID-19 outbreak starting in the first half of 2020, data analyzed from the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights Breach Portal shows that the number of patient data records breached dramatically declined during the early stages of the pandemic. CI Security analysts assessment indicates that the number of breach reports in the first half of 2020 is down 10.4 percent compared to the second half of 2019, and the number of breached records is down nearly 83 percent, based on information that healthcare organizations are required to submit to HHS within 60 days of the discovery of any breach affecting more than 500 individual records.
This increased strain has increased the need for DevOps and database DevOps processes, with 41% of respondents in the healthcare sector saying they have adopted DevOps across some projects to free up developer time and increase the speed of delivery. "We know that the healthcare sector is facing unprecedented demands from the pandemic and other regulatory struggles, and DevOps is the best way to tackle these issues," said Kendra Little, DevOps Advocate, Redgate.