The healthcare industry continues to be in the news for the wrong reasons, as it remains the top industry for data breaches in the first half of 2015, according to Tech Republic. Based on Gemalto’s Data Breach Index, healthcare remains the leader for total data breaches, most records stolen, and the single largest breach (health insurer Anthem), with records including “names, birthdays, medical IDs, social security numbers, street addresses, e-mail addresses, and employment information, including income data,” according to CNN Money.
In response to these breaches, the healthcare industry is struggling to keep up. Parham Eftekhari, co-founder and senior fellow of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) told HealthITSecurity, “I see healthcare breaches skyrocketing over the next few years and there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to be very upset. There are just so many holes, and they’re trying to do this so fast that they’re not thinking through the security aspect of when they’re hooking things together, merging medical records, and when they’re using these new systems. I see a rocky road for healthcare when it comes to cybersecurity in the near future.”
One of the key issues preventing these companies from securing their networks and records is the lack of qualified people, according to Tech Republic. With cybersecurity positions requiring extensive education, and healthcare regulations imposing additional requirements, finding suitable candidates for positions can be a slow process. As long as the availability of candidates remains low, the industry will continue to find itself the target and victim of hacks.
Source:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/cybersecurity-professionals-the-healthcare-industry-needs-you/
