In 2021, healthcare data breaches hit a new record, impacting a total of 45 million people. That’s a shocking statistic that should raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity in the healthcare sector. However, if you work in a hospital, lab, or other clinical setting and remain unversed in healthcare cybersecurity issues, you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’re discussing healthcare cybersecurity issues to avoid and healthcare cybersecurity best practices for better protection.
Common Healthcare Cybersecurity Issues
The Issue: Lack of Employee Training
Solid employee training is crucial to running any healthcare company. However with so many other items to focus on, the last thing you want to worry about is additional training for healthcare cybersecurity best practices. However, cybersecurity awareness training is essential if you want to protect your entire company from cyber-attacks. If even one employee isn’t following best practices, it leaves room for a hacker to slip in and do serious harm.
The Solution: Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Invest in Cybersecurity Awareness Training for all your employees. Within any industry, it for all employees, no matter their tenure or their level of expertise. Ensure they understand healthcare cybersecurity best practices, and company procedures required for the safety of your patient data. Hold trainings regularly to keep people up to date.
The Issue: Vulnerable Patient Information
The number one asset for healthcare organizations is your patients and their data. Unfortunately, hackers who target health-related companies often go for patient data to take advantage of valuable personal information within.
Do you adequately protect patient information? Keeping your number one asset safe from cyber-attacks is a massive undertaking and can be easy to let slip through the cracks. Especially when you’re so busy running the rest of your responsibilities, how do you manage to keep performing healthcare cybersecurity best practices?
The Solution: Encrypt and Protect Everything You Send
When you need to send patient data to another practice or another physician, you must protect that information. Otherwise, anyone can open that email and get the info within potentially. What’s the solution to this healthcare cybersecurity issue? Train your employees to always to send information securely. Use a protected email system and transmit data with passwords protection. That immediately lessens the risk of someone unauthorized obtaining those files.
The Issue: Insecure Technology
Working in healthcare often means you have technology working alongside you. It’s where most patient data is stored these days. While online programs and high-tech laptops often make your job easier, it does come with a risk: exposing patient data if you’re using unsecure technology.
The Solution: Update and Educate
Keep all technology up to date. Doing so ensures nothing is left exposed. Hackers often attack computers with out-of-date software, because they have known loopholes that make it easier to gain access. Make sure your employees keep their technology password protected so no one can sign in and see personal information. Ensure that, in case technology is stolen, you can wipe the data online, without the technology in your possession.
Another useful tool? Two-factor authentication. With this resource, if a hacker wants to sign in to your account, they have to jump through two hoops. First, they must guess your password correctly. Secondly, they must verify it’s you trying to sign in through a completely different device. When you sign up for 2FA passwords, you choose a second contact option for the website you sign into.
This also adds additional safeguards. For example, If you sign into your account on a new device, your phone or email will be sent a ping, and you have to accept the login. Therefore, if someone hacks your account, you know right away and stop it. Ensure all online logins have 2FAs setup for all your employees and online logins. The setup process is super easy, and the benefits are massive.
The Issue: No Attack Plan Strategy in Place
No one wants to plan for the worst, but sometimes the worst appears without warning. That’s why it’s vital to have a plan in place if a hacker successfully gets into your accounts. If this happens and you don’t have a response strategy, you lose valuable time, assets, and resources. If you have an backup plan ready to go, you can get your business back on track more quickly and don’t risk losing a lot of money and time.
The Solution: Create a Plan
How do you fix this healthcare cybersecurity issue? Consult with a healthcare cybersecurity expert to discuss your incident response plan so your company knows what to do if you are hacked. A cybersecurity consultant will know what to do so you get that information back as quickly as possible while also lowering the damages. When you have a detailed incident response plan ready to roll out, it’s a better outcome for everyone involved.
The number one way to avoid healthcare cybersecurity issues is to hire a professional cybersecurity company to help you and your organization remain safe. At Integris, we take pride in helping healthcare companies keep all of their patient data safe from potential attacks.
Avoid Common Healthcare Cybersecurity Issues
We hope the above list of healthcare cybersecurity best practices helps you feel more confident in next steps to protect your company. Unfortunately,, the information above just scratches the surface of what a healthy, cyber-secure company looks like. Ultimately, it takes a lot of work, resources, and time to ensure that all of your patient data is safe.
As a healthcare provider, you’re taking care of your business on top of your patients’ health and wellbeing. That is a lot to juggle on its own, never mind having to worry about cybersecurity on top of that. That’s why managed cybersecurity services are the best thing you can do for you, your patients, and your business.
Align Your Business with Healthcare Cybersecurity Best Practices
At Integris, we specialize in helping businesses like yours feel confident and secure when it comes to healthcare cybersecurity best practices. You won’t have to worry about preparing an incident response plan, training your employees, or setting up preventative solutions. We take care of everything for you, so you can focus on what matters: your business and your patients. Contact us today to see how Integris can make your IT right.
