A year after the first Covid-19 case was reported, the fight with the global pandemic isn’t over, neither for the hospitals and medical field in general, nor in the information technology (IT) security department.
According to a prediction by Cybersecurity Ventures, the world’s leading publisher and researcher covering the global cyber economy, the likelihood of cyberattacks in the healthcare industry will be up to thrice that of other industries in 2021. Besides the security threat, data breaches in healthcare will also be incredibly expensive. While there is a projected $125 billion to be spent on cybersecurity for the healthcare field from 2020 to 2025, how those funds are allocated at maximum efficiency is a key concern.
With that in mind, organizations should be looking to take a layered approach to cybersecurity to make sure that patient data—which is highly sensitive—is well protected.
Start at the End
Endpoint protection and response are the most critical issues that security professionals will have to face, largely due to working from home becoming the norm nowadays. What is an endpoint in this case? Laptops, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, and residential workstations can be referred to as endpoints. However, when it comes to security risks, they are actually “start points” for the first strike of threat actors.
The “pandemic effect” is real, and it directly affects IT practices. Nurses, medical practitioners, and therapists are accessing telemedicine and even resources like journals and medical blogs from home. These extended endpoints are heavily relied on by organizations outside the enterprise firewall, largely supported by data warehouses and applications based in the cloud.
Vulnerable Areas
One of the biggest ways that these endpoints are attacked is through phishing scams. Internet connections are another sensitive point of entry for healthcare organizations. While the home of a staffer may seem secure enough, it’s worth looking at it through another lens: professional security terms. It is entirely possible for criminals to access a wide range of residential IoT devices.
Since a number of items in the home have internet connections, such as connected home devices, voice assistants, and even refrigerators, there are multiple easy entry points wherein private networks can be penetrated to reach endpoints.
Equip the Remote Worker
The employee is actually the ultimate perimeter point. On a real-word, offline scale, IT security is rooted in workforce training. A whopping 95% of breaches are actually caused by human error, as found by IBM. It usually occurs when an end-user clicks on something they should not in the first place, which usually ends up being a phishing scam. Insurance IDs, social security numbers, and passwords are just a few of the sensitive data that are under primary threat.
Obviously, it’s impossible to get large organizations into a training room during a pandemic, and it’s important to find secure alternatives. A practical solution is to create and distribute a phishing campaign mockup, which leads to a reinforcement tool like a training video when they interact.
Conclusion
The global pandemic has changed so much of how the world moves forward, including exposing vulnerabilities in almost every industry. In the particular case of the healthcare industry, cybersecurity is top of that list. It is vital to stay on top of things to brace for the security breaches that may come in 2021.
For the most up-to-date health articles, visit Dose of Healthcare! The blog is dedicated to the latest on all aspects of the healthcare industry.
