Cybercrime attacks specifically designed to steal protected healthcare information have risen by more than 300% since 2018. As a medical practice owner and the guardian of sensitive patient information, the onus is on your business to mitigate your exposure. But how can physicians improve best practices when working to protect themselves and their patients from a devastating healthcare data breach?
Healthcare Data is Hackers’ Gold
Each day millions of patients’ personal details are stolen by cybercriminals, and hackers are working non-stop to develop sophisticated ways to continue to get what they want – healthcare data.
Vulnerable healthcare information is like catnip to cybercriminals. Medical data is profitable in so many ways; it is easy to sell, contains enough information to successfully steal identities, and the information differs from credit card or banking hacks. Medical records cannot be instantly blocked or deleted, and fraud alert calls do not happen. By the time a patient is notified of a data breach, the criminals already have the information, and they tend to keep it.
Phishing, Cloud Compromise, and Ransomware
Phishing attacks are generally avoidable, but despite the public’s common knowledge of e-mail scams, hurried and honest victims are often quick to pay a false invoice or respond to prompts to reset a passcode. Hackers are trained scam artists whose job it is to steal information, and their corrupted emails and texts are more realistic than ever.
Even with the most thorough employee training and recognition of imminent cyberthreats, unintentional breaches will almost certainly happen. A well-intended employee may open a nefarious email and suddenly your patient and practice information are compromised. To reduce the risk, practices should ensure that employees with access to protected information are legally authorized and trained to understand the importance of protecting your patient data.
Although less common, ransomware attacks remain popular in the healthcare industry. Healthcare must keep moving to save lives, and the success of ransomware attacks is based upon the probability that the targeted entity will quickly pay the ransom.
Practitioners who recognize that cybercrime is a well-developed adversarial threat become diligent about safety, and therefore more resilient against cyberattacks.
Downtime Can Lead to Death
Cyberattacks can affect patient care and are a liability for medical practices. Disruptions in access to cloud stored patient information can delay necessary treatments, endanger patient safety, and degrade the quality of care. Deviation from the standard of care caused by a breach has been linked to increased mortality rates and litigation. Disruption of revenue cycles is often part of the quagmire. The average cost of a healthcare data breach in the United States is $4.5 million. Ultimately, everyone pays the price.
Keeping Patients Safe
Most patients trust their doctors and have little reluctance in disclosing their personal information in a healthcare setting. The reality is that healthcare information security protocols traditionally fall behind, resulting in healthcare information becoming the prime industry targeted by cyberattacks. The double-edged sword of physician/patient trust coupled with the current susceptibility of healthcare information makes it almost certain that patient data breaches will continue to rise.
Cybersecurity in medicine must be a top priority that works in seamless conjunction with every company and individual that has access to your patient information. Outdated and difficult to use solutions create gaps in data delivery between entities and are an open door for an attack.
When a breach is detected in a clinic or hospital system, the reaction should be an immediate response and systemwide alert from an IT expert skilled in how to limit risks, reduce the information breach, and, above all, protect patient information.
Employee Matters
Healthcare facilities have historically employed a variety of workers with various levels of clearance and authorization, all working together. Unfortunately, a close environment of employee familiarity and “work families” can lead to a lack of judgement when holding protected information for clearance. Co-workers observe and often share passcodes that allow access to sensitive information to save time and sometimes lives. Installing a strong, multi-factor access management program can help reduce risks, particularly when used in conjunction with advanced verification tools.
Existing employees should be made aware of the clearance levels for new employees. This can include all levels of workers who each may have differed legal access to areas of information. HR should disseminate this new hire information as needed to reinforce security.
Protection can be improved by better preparation for a cyberattack with a progressive and solid plan to speed recovery in the event of a data breach. Developing a plan that includes rapid recovery steps to speed data recovery and restoration of instrumental systems is paramount, but also needs to be used as a learning tool prevent the introduction of additional and similar threats.
Virtual Office Healthcare Solutions and AdvancedMD
Cybersecurity is a serious matter and is treated as such at Virtual OfficeWare Healthcare Solutions, whose team of experts use sophisticated measures to secure your data and keep your practice protected. Partnered with AdvancedMD, our trusted services and solutions help healthcare organizations seamlessly surmount barriers to digital information theft. With reliable cloud security, your practice can be assured that your data security is always paramount.
All medical and personal information and patient records are stored in a managed cloud environment to offer freedom and security over application service providers (ASP). Multi-factor authentication lowers data breach risks by eliminating the practice of login username and password at gateway entrance to provide an extra layer of security. Our watchful eye and masterfully designed analysis and business platforms work to prevent future losses and bolster your organization’s ability to recover from unexpected breaches quickly. Ready to get started? Experience a powerful solution in a live demo today for better data protection tomorrow.
