• Home
    • About DBI
    • Award Winning Diver BI Software
    • Customer Commendations
    • The Team
    • DBI Privacy Policy
  • Articles
    • News
    • Accolades
    • Blog
  • Products
    • Diver | BI
      • Diver Workbench
      • Videos
      • Case Studies
    • Gap 360 Sales Analysis
      • Diver on demand in the Cloud
  • Applications
    • Property
      • Property Prices Ireland
    • Supply Chain
      • Retail
      • Wholesale
      • Distributor
      • Produce
      • Manufacturing
      • Autoparts
      • Transport
      • Beverage Alcohol Suppliers
      • Beverage Alcohol Distributors
      • DI Program Advisor
    • Diversity
      • Waste management
      • Telecom Brokerage
      • Colleges & Universities
      • Economic Trends
      • Maps
      • Travel & Tourism
      • Parking
      • Smart Meters
      • Carbon Emissions Management
    • Healthcare
      • Healthcare
      • Pharma Applications of Diver
      • DI Surgery Advisor
      • DI Physician Performance Advisor
    • Finance
      • Finance
      • DI GL Advisor
    • Mobile
      • DiveTab Mobile BI
  • Partners
    • Dimensional Insight
    • Diver BI Group
      • Envisage
      • Chartwell IT
      • Cloud-works Solutions Ltd
      • Data Management Business Insight
      • Manitex
      • Equiniti ICS
      • Pinnula
      • Formell
      • IBI
    • Zight – Partner for Transport
    • 24/7 Uptime
    • ID Technology (Brazil)
    • Infotool (Nordic Countries)
    • BIMAXIS – DI France
    • KDE Group (Israel)
  • Services
    • SaaS
    • Training
    • Support
    • Software Development
    • Consultancy
  • Contact

DBI Dynamic
Business
Informatics

Home Articles Top Cybersecurity Investments for Healthcare in 2022

Top Cybersecurity Investments for Healthcare in 2022

Wednesday 16th March 2022

by Trevor Branch

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Organizations just need to watch the news to know that cybersecurity breaches are becoming an increasingly common threat to the healthcare industry. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 45 million records were compromised by healthcare cybersecurity attacks in 2021, up more than 3x as much from 14 million in 2018.

Many of these attacks arose during the pandemic as the transition to remote work provided hackers with countless new vulnerabilities to target and exploit. In response, as many as 48% of healthcare industry executives said they were increasing their cybersecurity budgets in 2021. With attack rates still increasing well into 2022, it’s critical that businesses remain informed on current best practices in order to protect both themselves and their patients.

Anti-ransomware measures

Over the past couple of years, ransomware has grown increasingly popular amongst cybercriminal groups, with 42% of healthcare organizations reporting at least two attacks within the past two years. Whereas data recovery might mitigate the ransomware risk in other industries, ransomware attacks in the healthcare industry can result in longer length-of-stays, poor patient outcomes, and complications in medical procedures.

Unfortunately, the high stakes nature of successful cybersecurity attacks in healthcare means many organizations are more likely to a pay premium, and within a much shorter time frame.

In an effort to reduce some of the risks associated with such attacks, many businesses are investing more in protective measures such multi-factor authentication (MFA), which in itself has become a requirement for many cyber insurance companies. Other organizations are making use of immutable backups to provide a protective layer between their current systems and a potential restore point. Immutable backups function as a separate copy with their own security protocols, similar to a safety deposit box.

Securing medical devices

Internet of Things (IoT) devices have exploded in popularity over the last few years due to their versatility and wide range of applications, with the market projected to reach $534.3 billion by 2025. However, with all that recent growth also comes a surplus of new targets for potential hackers hoping to capitalize on their portability and internet access.

On top of the danger posed to patients, compromised medical devices can also allow hackers to infiltrate an organization’s network. In order to secure medical devices from would-be criminals, organizations have to address major vulnerabilities such as hardcoded passwords, insufficient security controls, poor network implementation, and a lack of enforced security credentials.

As these devices age, health systems will also need to implement a top-down approach to security to ensure that legacy devices aren’t compromised. Part of this will entail developing a bridge program to determine how aging devices should be managed before they’re replaced. Furthermore, increased monitoring would provide useful metrics related to the device lifecycle and allow organizations to better plan for future devices.

Protecting supply chains

Over the past couple years, large-scale attacks like the SolarWinds incident demonstrated just how devastating supply chain breaches can be for the businesses they support. With the number of third-party platforms being used by businesses nowadays, health systems have to put in place measures that not only account for their own networks, but those of their third-party partners.

First and foremost, organizations have to assess and know the risks associated with their suppliers. Security is only as strong as its weakest link, and holding themselves to high standards of cybersecurity means little if healthcare systems don’t apply these same standards to the third-party groups they work with. Every connection an organization makes is a potential new endpoint for criminals to attack.

Reliable suppliers, coupled with preemptive measures like vendor access monitoring, continuous vulnerability/risk assessments, background checks, and regulatory compliance requirements can go a long way in terms of deterring potential attacks. However, the risk is never zero when it comes to cybersecurity, and healthcare systems need to include their supply chain in their response and remediation plan. In the case that an incident occurs, organizations need to be ready and be able to communicate and work together with their supplies to address breaches and mitigate any further damages.

Increased monitoring and risk assessments

The easiest way to stop a potential breach is to catch it before it happens. Increased network traffic monitoring, especially with the transition to remote work during the pandemic, is crucial for making sure that potential risks are never realized. This is why many healthcare organizations are investing more and more in solutions that provide services like network perimeter protection, network surveillance, and appropriate network access assurance. Full network visibility is also becoming increasingly popular across the healthcare IT landscape.

Conducting regular risk assessments can also help healthcare providers detect dangerous vulnerabilities long before criminals do. With new weak points constantly emerging as organizations update and change their systems, IT departments have to remain proactive about evaluating potential threats.

Education and advocacy

At the end of the day, cybersecurity often comes down to the individual employee. Many attacks are simply a result of poor password habits, falling for fraudulent emails, and failing to protect their connected devices. End-user education on best practices and advocacy from upper management is an easy and cheap way to dramatically reduce some of the risks facing healthcare organizations.

IT departments need to establish and enforce policies that clearly communicate appropriate use of an organization’s systems and data. Human-error is often the biggest threat to cybersecurity, and even small improvements in proper network access can go a long way. Remember, a phishing email is only as dangerous as the individual who opens it.

What now?

Technology is constantly evolving and so are the criminals seeking to exploit it. The healthcare industry will continue to be a hot target for cybersecurity attacks for years to come, and organizations have to prepare accordingly. To learn more the current state of healthcare technology following the pandemic, check out our blog post—”Top Healthcare BI Trends

Trevor Branch
Trevor is a marketing writer at Dimensional Insight. He recently graduated from University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.S. in psychology and a minor in information technology. Outside of writing, Trevor’s other professional interests include content strategy and information architecture.
Avatar photo

Debbie Lonsdale, DBI

Contact Debbie

Previous PostNext Post

Latest News from DBI

  • Dynamic Business Informatics Holiday Message
  • What’s New in Diver 7.2?
  • Dimensional Insight Named an Overall Leader by Dresner Advisory Services in 2022 Industry Excellence Awards
  • Top Logistics Trends for 2022
  • Take a Look at the DIUC22 Agenda

DBI Accolades

  • Dimensional Insight Named an Overall Leader by Dresner Advisory Services in 2022 Industry Excellence Awards
  • Dresner Wisdom of Crowds 2022 – Best in Class Results
  • Klas 2022 – A Grades for Dimensional Insight
  • Dimensional Insight Earns Top Marks in 2021 Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study
  • Best in Klas 2021

Dynamic Business Informatics Ltd

UK & Ireland Distributor of The Diver Solution, providing business consultancy services, products and applications derived from the Diver Solution.
14 Mellifont Avenue
Dun Laoghaire
Co. Dublin

+353 1 2302022

10 Kenyon Street
Nenagh
Co Tipperary

+353 67 43309

Contact Us

We would love to hear from you! Please submit your query and we will get in touch with you shortly.

Email addresses are never sold, rented, or shared. Please see our Privacy Policy.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

DBI Blog

How a Growth Mindset Can Help You in Analytics

What are some characteristics of a growth mindset and how can having this frame of mind benefit people who work in analytics? Here are three ways.More

  • How Organizations Can Use Analytics for Supply Chain Agility
  • Inventory Analytics: Four Key Sales-Related Metrics to Watch
  • Inventory Analytics: Two Sets of Metrics that Really Matter
  • 5 Data Trends for 2023

More Blog Posts

Copyright © 2014–2023 DBI · Privacy Policy · website by cubecolour

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.


What Are Cookies?


As is common practice with almost all professional websites this site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your computer, to improve your experience. This page describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or 'break' certain elements of the sites functionality.


For more general information on cookies, please read "What Are Cookies".


How We Use Cookies


We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to this site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not in case they are used to provide a service that you use.


Disabling Cookies


You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser Help for how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies will affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Disabling cookies will usually result in also disabling certain functionality and features of the this site. Therefore it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.


The Cookies We Set




  • Account related cookies


    If you create an account with us then we will use cookies for the management of the signup process and general administration. These cookies will usually be deleted when you log out however in some cases they may remain afterwards to remember your site preferences when logged out.




  • Login related cookies


    We use cookies when you are logged in so that we can remember this fact. This prevents you from having to log in every single time you visit a new page. These cookies are typically removed or cleared when you log out to ensure that you can only access restricted features and areas when logged in.




  • Forms related cookies


    When you submit data to through a form such as those found on contact pages or comment forms cookies may be set to remember your user details for future correspondence.




  • Site preferences cookies


    In order to provide you with a great experience on this site we provide the functionality to set your preferences for how this site runs when you use it. In order to remember your preferences we need to set cookies so that this information can be called whenever you interact with a page is affected by your preferences.




Third Party Cookies


In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.




  • This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so we can continue to produce engaging content.


    For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.




More Information


Hopefully that has clarified things for you and as was previously mentioned if there is something that you aren't sure whether you need or not it's usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it does interact with one of the features you use on our site.


However if you are still looking for more information then you can contact us through our contact page

Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT