By Steve Spearman, Founder and Chief Security Consultant for Health Security Solutions
Twitter: @HIPAASolutions
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Cyber security news site Dark Reading recently posted an article outlining data breaches from the last decade. They reported that the healthcare industry has had more security breaches than any other industry in the past ten years. In total, healthcare accounted for almost 27% of all reported security breaches. Since breaches that affect under 500 persons are not “reportable”, this number is likely much higher in reality.
In addition to having more breaches than other industries, healthcare also had more problems with “missing devices”. This was the most commonly reported type of breach, with missing devices (read: stolen or lost) accounting for 60% of all data breaches in healthcare. In contrast, missing devices only comprised 41% of the data breaches for all industries combined.
To make matters worse, the healthcare industry also accounted for 29.8% of all identity theft cases and had a larger insider breach problem than any other sector (17.5% of the total number of healthcare data breaches). In short, “missing devices and untrustworthy insiders made the healthcare industry responsible for more (reported) data breaches than any other sector all decade”.
So what can you do to protect your organization from data breaches? Check out some of our best tips here:
Twelve Ways to Stay Ahead of Security Breaches
Insider Breaches Remain a Problem in Healthcare
Insider Breaches a Growing Risk
What You Can Do to Combat Mobile Device Threats to Healthcare IT
Steve Spearman hosts HIPAA Chat, a show produced by HITECH Answers airing on our Internet radio station, HealthcareNOWradio.com. Learn more about HIPAA Chat or download podcasts of the show. Find out more about attending the next taping of HIPAA Chat and ask your questions directly to Steve.