The State Of Healthcare Cybersecurity (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, which drew data from a study by Black Book Market Research, I described how insecure healthcare leaders felt their cybersecurity protections to be. I also noted that a large number of providers are struggling to recruit senior health IT experts, and as a result are basically winging it when it comes to breach protection.

Healthcare organizations’ data security problems run deeper than that, however, the study suggests. Not only are C-level execs finding security investments to be troublesome, IT managers responding to the survey admit that they, too, feel that they are not fully prepared to defend their institution’s data.

To begin with, 74% of surveyed CIOs admitted that they failed to evaluate the total cost of ownership before signing a deal with a cybersecurity solution or service provider, and 89% said they bought their cybersecurity solution to be compliant with security regs, and often, not necessarily to reduce security risks.

And the failure to protect critical information doesn’t stop there.  For example, 57% of IT managers said that they hadn’t taken stock of the full variety of cybersecurity solutions that currently exist, notably mobile security environments, intrusion detection, attack prevention, forensics and testing.

Also, many healthcare institutions seem to react only after they’ve been invaded. According to Black Book, 58% of hospitals didn’t select their current security vendor until after a data security incident, and 32% of healthcare organizations hadn’t scanned for vulnerabilities before an attack.

What’s more, 83% of healthcare organizations haven’t staged a cybersecurity drill which included an incident response process, which arguably leaves them particularly unprepared. Not only that, when an attack comes, some won’t catch it right away, as 29% said they don’t have an adequate solution to instantly detect and respond to cyberattacks.

Meanwhile, 16% of respondents reported being uncomfortable working with vendors that do a hard sell when they find security flaws and vulnerabilities. These insecurities aren’t surprising given that 60% of healthcare enterprises haven’t formally identified specific security objectives and requirements and integrated them into a strategic and tactical plan for breach prevention.

Given how unfocused many security plans are, it’s not surprising that 22% of provider organizations believe their cybersecurity position will worsen between now and the second quarter of 2019. Only 12% of hospitals and 9% of physician organizations reported that they expected to see cybersecurity improvements.

The bottom line here is that if the Black Book research is correct, many healthcare organizations are frighteningly unprepared to protect their data, much less survive a serious attack relatively unscathed. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that providers wise up to the need for strategic, substantial investments in security technology and staff.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

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