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Top 8 Reasons Why Health Care is the Prime Target for Cyber Attacks
Do you know, “Why healthcare is the primary target for cyber attackers or hackers? Do you know, more than 25 percent of cyber attacks affect healthcare facilities or hospitals? Have you ever think that “why health care facilities are vulnerable to target fir cyber attacks?
As per 2018 research, it has s been suggested that health information or data is the second most risk type of data, and since 2019, approximately 25 million patient records are affected.
In the past few years, healthcare organizations worldwide are hit by cyberattacks, and after the Covid-19 pandemic, it has become worse. In 2020, Covid-19 brought an unprecedented spike in cyber attacks in the medical community. Unfortunately, Covid-19 isn’t entirely responsible for cyber attacks; however, many other reasons why health care is the primary target for cyber attacks.
Why Do Hackers Target Health Care or Hospitals?
Currently, the health care field is in a precarious position because new technologies continuously increase the success of outcomes, with the latest resources, technological medical devices, and remarkable consistency; however, this technology invites cyber threats and create vulnerability to attack.
There are many reasons behind the appealing target of health care for cyber attacks. Being a part of a health organization, you must be aware of cyber attacks reasons in a health care organization.
Below, we have mentioned the top 8 Reasons health care has become more susceptible to cyberattacks. You must read all of them; they will help you improve cybersecurity protection by identifying cyber threats in the health care industry.
For Making Money by Selling Private Patient Information in Black Market
Health care organizations have an extraordinary measure of patient information, and hackers can earn worth money by selling it, in the black market, for making the business development objective. Health records and other patient-related information are hugely demanded in the black market.
In some instances, hackers are even capable of selling the information back to the hospital itself. They generate massive profits from such “transactions.” Even though hackers can make money from patient data by selling such records to the highest bidder or blackmailing the patient.
Medical record security should be the primary concern for the health care industry. It’s the responsibility of an organization to keep secure their patient’s data; as GDPR becomes an integral factor this year, it’s become essential for hospitals to secure their patient health data. It’s an alarming thought for the medical care industry that is already struggling with financing everyday work requests.
Health Care staff is Untrained or Uneducated in Cyber Risks.
To increase Healthcare cybersecurity and minimize cyber risks, medical professionals are trained and prepared to deal with cyber risks. Although in lack of assets and time limitations, it’s quite difficult to educate a medical staff for cyber threats and malware completely, however all medical services staff to be familiar with online protection best practices to overcome the chances of occurring cyber risk.
Cybersecurity solutions and medical device lifecycle management is complex and required a professional and trained cybersecurity service; however, their interface should be straightforward. Health care staff must be trained or educated about accessing medical devices and identifying the common cybersecurity risks and medical device risks. Educating your staff about cyber threats means adding additional layers of security to the cybersecurity system.
Outdated Technology in your Health Care Organization
For all the remarkable advances in medical innovations lately, not every aspect of the healthcare industry has kept pace. Still, many health organizations follow traditional and outdated technology because of restricted financial plans.
New frameworks, IoT inventory, advanced medical device risk management, and predictive maintenance IoT system are used to release system updates to enhance security and keep all clinical innovations obsolete.
The latest technology and software updates enhance your cybersecurity system, with an update, it usually rings bug fixes to keep systems reasonably secure. There is a lack of limited cybersecurity and IoT inventory system if cyberattacks or risks increase automatically.
Medical services associations must respond to the furthest down the online threats to keep their patient information secure. It is possible only if you adopt the latest technological medical information security system.
Medical Devices are a Simple Passage Point for Attackers
In a health care organization, medical device cybersecurity is the critical factor, which we can’t ignore because medical devices are an easy entry point for attackers. There isn’t any drawback to development in medical care innovation nowadays. Medical devices such as; x-beams, insulin siphons, and defibrillators assume a necessary part of present medical care.
Clinical gadgets are intended for a specific purpose, such as; observing pulses or administering drugs. They’re not designed by keeping in mind medical record security. Although medical gadgets may not store the patient information, which attackers want to access, they can launch an attack on servers that holds crucial information.
If hackers can hack over a clinical device, it prevents medical services organizations from giving fundamental life-saving treatment to patients.
Staff Needs to Access Data Distantly, Opening Up More Freedom for Attackers
In medical care organization, each unit needs to cooperate to deliver the best outcomes to every patient. In a healthy environment, staff members can’t constantly sit in their work area; they frequently need to work distantly from various gadgets.
For Asset utilization and use of medical devices effectively, they need to be connected in a network; however, connecting new medical devices in a network remotely can be dangerous, as not all gadgets will be secure.
Apart from this, medical care staff isn’t regularly taught or trained in network protection best practices; undermined devices mustn’t access the network. Only one hacked device can leave an entire association open to be hacked.
It would be best if you purchase medical devices from top medical device companies. Quality medical devices provide Medical device lifecycle management services and launch training programs for the health care staff to identify the risk of a given device upon the user, location, and more.
Health Care Data Should Be Open and Shareable
In the healthcare industry, there’s no ideal opportunity to stop and consider the security ramifications of the medical devices they’re utilizing because they need to share patient information, both on location instantly and distantly on different medical devices; it must be opened to staff.
Now, the concern is that not all medical devices are fully secured; they can’t always be there to assess every device’s credentials in a limited period. It doesn’t imply that patients who access their information must be required to access specific data and perform a task.
For example, if any patient needs to browse their messages, they won’t have full administrator account privileges. In an open and shareable data system, the chances of cyber attacks are higher.
Quantity of Medical Devices in Medical Organizations makes it Difficult to Keep Steady over Security.
All medical organizations are engaged with an extensive network of medical devices and are highly responsible for managing massive patient information. With the size of a health organization, the range of connected devices in a network increase automatically. A more prominent organization needs to manage a vast number of medical devices, and each one is acting as a possible danger for assailants.
In sizeable medical care, all the medical devices and systems are connected in a network. If only a single device is hacked, it frees the entire organization up to information loss and clinical gadget hacks. Thus, hackers generally make large health organizations their primary target.
Medical care staff members are often occupied with performing their daily jobs, with little cyber risk identification knowledge. Most commonly, health care organizations adopt cybersecurity in the healthcare industry, leaving IT experts to secure the whole medical network against the attack and increasing security.
Small Health Care Organizations are Highly Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks
Like big organizations, small-sized healthcare organizations are equally vulnerable to cyber attacks, but the reasons in both aspects are different. Large organizations hold a large amount of data; that’s why attackers find them a primary target.
Most often, small health organizations have a small security budget; they cannot hire a good healthcare cybersecurity company or IoT cybersecurity company to prevent their organization from cyber threats or attacks.
It doesn’t matter whether a health care organization is large or small; both are in charge of sensitive patient data, and both required cybersecurity protection from cyber threats. Being a health care leader, you must be aware of current security threats, try to spend more on adopting a good cybersecurity company, and get plenty of solutions to secure your organization’s data.
Conclusion
In medical organizations contains a record of sensitive and personal information data, which is highly valuable for cyber attackers because this kind of information is highly demanding in the black market. Once they have got this information, they can misuse it in various ways, so you need to be protective about your health care data.
This blog has listed all possible reasons that serve health care organizations as a desert for cyber attackers. Above mentioned reasons are sufficient to clarify that, “Why hackers target health care? By visualizing these facts, we can’t underestimate the importance of medical device risk management and Healthcare cybersecurity.
Asimily is a Health care cybersecurity service provider with focused security solutions, procurement risk assessment, threats protection technology, and staff training courses that help you protect from cyber-attacks and grow in the years to come.