Over the past year, the healthcare industry found itself under constant attack. Cybercriminals targeted vulnerable clinical networks and poor controls to gain privileged access to medical devices and databases on an almost daily basis. Consider that in just the first two months of 2018, 24 health care provider organizations reported data breaches affecting over 1,000 patients each, a 60% increase over the same time period last year. However, with only 53% of healthcare and public-sector security decision makers reporting a breach in the past year, it’s likely there are many more breaches going unreported.
Engaging Employees in Health Care Data Security
Over the past year, the healthcare industry found itself under constant attack. Cybercriminals targeted vulnerable clinical networks and poor controls to gain privileged access to medical devices and databases on an almost daily basis. And the threats are only getting more serious. Hospital security decision makers typically understand these details and constantly worry that the next attack will take critical servers and endpoint devices offline or steal sensitive patient data. In response, they wisely invest in technical controls to protect their network. But for all their attention to the problem, they too often overlook the equally critical, human element in security. To get employees to incorporate security into their daily routines, organizations must craft a behavior change strategy, and develop content that’s worthy of employees’ attention.