According to Bitglass latest healthcare breach, there were almost 600 healthcare data breaches in the previous year, affecting more than 25 million people. Every year, the cloud security checks data from the US Department of Health and Social Services. This is a data that contains security violations related to protected health data. The increase of cyber attacks and IT incidents goes on every year since 2018. Events in this part were by far the most common cause of data security breaches in the healthcare industry. Cyber attacks and IT incidents also affected 90 % of the health records compromised in 2020. 25 million records were affected, costing healthcare companies billions of dollars. The average cost per affected health increased in 2020. In addition, it took the average healthcare company approximately 235 days to recover from a data breach.
The Number Of Data Breaches Rose In All Areas
37 out of 50 US states stated an increase compared to the previous year. California suffered the most data security breaches in healthcare with 50 incidents, beating Texas hardest hit in 2019, where 43 incidents were counted the following year.
The vast majority of healthcare companies process and store proprietary health data, including social security, patient medical histories, and other personal data. It’s no surprise that these companies are being targeted by cyber attackers whose goal is to gain access to data for financial gain. The extremely high increase of cyber attacks and IT incidents is an expression of the changing activities of dangerous actors. Healthcare companies that are continuously driving cloud and transformation must employ appropriate tools and activities to protect patient records and respond to the increasing threats to their IT networks.
Data Theft
The deployment of data malware such as Trojans and spyware by hackers in the health sector is increasing. With the help of pandemic related data, actors infiltrate programs to compromise networks, steal data.
