The 10 Most Trusted Healthcare IT Security Solution Providers 2018 Final file Healthcare IT optimize | Page 4

From the
Editor C
yber security is healthcare’s hot potato today. Cybercrimes
have affected the industry on a very large scale and there’s
no permanent solution reached, if it even exists. With the
rise of these threats at an alarming rate, majority of the healthcare
companies have adopted various strategies to protect their patient’s
data and all the critical information. “Busy fighting the outsiders,
less attention is paid to the menace that lies inside.” It is a known
fact that six out of ten cyber-attacks in the healthcare industry have
an insider from the organization involved.
The unpredictability of the insider threat is more than an external
one, pointing to a greater risk. Moreover, the trusted insider has
legitimate access to all the systems of the organization and hence,
the difficulty of going through the already installed security walls is
eliminated. They also know what information is stored where,
making it easier for them to breach the target data. All known and
understood, it is not wrong to say that insider cyber-attacks are one
of the greatest challenges for the healthcare industry in today’s
date.
The Threat
that Comes
From Within
Insider threats being hard to identify and even harder to prove,
necessary measures to eliminate them should be taken beforehand.
From background check before hiring an employee, or
collaborating with a partner, to timely monitoring the workforce to
controlled and protected access to sensitive data, healthcare
organizations today must take several steps to safeguard all its
digitally stored files. Also, more education on cyber security in
healthcare, provided to the current employees as well as the future
leaders of the industry, will help in reducing inside threats. Along
with this, the most important question you should be asking
yourself is- “What steps will you take differently if you are already
aware that you are going to be robbed, and by someone you trust?”
In the era where digitization has taken over the healthcare space,
what can be a greater threat than cyber-crime? Realizing the same,
many healthcare organizations, today, have strategized various
fences against cyber-attacks. But, most of them fail to acknowledge
the insider threats, focusing only on the external risks. As it is said
widely, ‘Cleanliness begins at home’, it is not wrong to analogize it
with the current scenario of cyber security.
andhar
Aishwarya Naw
Aishwarya Nawandhar