Key Interventions for Electronic Healthcare Record Security

Cyber-attacks have become the biggest reason of concern for organizations and individuals alike. This concern mainly stems from the fact that organizations are ill-prepared to deal with cyber threats. To add to this, hackers are leaving no stone unturned to get access to data worth millions.

A number of segments have borne the brunt of data frauds, and healthcare is no exception. According to SC magazine UK, half of the attacks in 2017 were targeted to healthcare . If we further diagnose the health of the sector, breach of electronic health records (EHR) continues unabated. According to a survey by Accenture, despite digital data protection measures, 26% of healthcare consumers have experienced data breach in 2017.

EHR data has become one of the most lucrative segments for hackers . This is further proved by the unceasing breaches that are being reported across the world, the US being highly affected. But what makes the EHR data worth targeting needs to be looked into. EHRs are highly sensitive patients data that not just have individual’s health information but other personal information like patient’s address, credit card number, social security number and other key credentials. This data if leaked will result in credit card frauds, exploitation of insurance companies and other risks such as duplicity of identification cards.

This is why it is of utmost importance for healthcare providers and organizations to go beyond conventional audit procedures and to follow other disruptive measures. The measures such as monitoring of file integrity or change management, avoiding misconfigurations and continuously conducting compliance are the key for overall security enhancement.

Large hospitals are complex network of departments, assets, and data. Change is prolific when it comes to changing assets such as hardware, software upgrades besides (Read more...)