To keep patient and business data safe, it’s vital for healthcare organizations to strengthen their cybersecurity posture. This overall security status and strength of defense against cyberattacks is a top-of-mind issue within the healthcare sector.
Cybersecurity is the execution of policies, processes, and technologies that protect programs, networks, devices, and data from unauthorized access and criminal attacks.
The healthcare industry is a prime target for cyberattacks, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike is amplifying the need for a stronger, industry-wide standardization of cybersecurity laws, processes, and policies.
We’re experiencing landmark healthcare innovations that are changing how our industry operates. These include the implementation of hybrid and remote work, widespread adoption of telehealth, and an increased focus on digital patient experience. Cybercriminals are taking advantage of these transformations, resulting in some providers being forced to cancel procedures and services due to their network’s disablement.
Cybersecurity practices and solutions must now address both on-site and remote environments while also keeping up with the inevitable evolution of both IT systems and their threats. Organizations now must focus on understanding their full array of owned IT assets, the benefits of having a strong posture, and knowing what it takes to constantly assess and optimize its overall cybersecurity readiness.
Benefits of a Strong Cybersecurity Posture
- Secures confidential patient and organizational data
- Protects intellectual property
- Safeguards patient health and safety
- Improves patient and consumer confidence
- Prevents patient and organizational fraud
- Avoids costly remediation spending
5 Ways to Strengthen Your Cybersecurity Posture in Healthcare
In having a strong cybersecurity posture, your organization is ready to detect and be protected against cybersecurity threats, like data breaches and theft of patient information and intellectual property. For some, that might mean adopting new cybersecurity technologies. But for others, you can improve your posture by providing education, conducting inventory audits, implementing response plans, conducting risk assessments, and tracking security metrics.
At a bare minimum, all organizations must adhere to HIPPA standards, but healthcare organizations should also continue to evolve and mature their postures beyond these regulations alone.
1. Train Your Team Members in Cybersecurity
A 2022 Global Risks Report found that 95% of cybersecurity issues can be traced to human error. Every team member in your organization plays a crucial role in cybersecurity, not just those in the IT department. Incorporating company-wide cybersecurity trainings will empower your teams to recognize potential threats and vulnerabilities, understand how to handle them, and participate in basic cybersecurity best practices.
Phishing attacks are increasingly more sophisticated and are currently the leading cause of data breaches and attacks in healthcare. Many organizations participate in phishing simulations where the IT department or a third-party vendor send fake phishing emails to team members and tracks who clicks the links. Those who fall for the fake phishing emails are required to watch training videos or attend further education.
2. Audit and Maintain Your IT Assets
Your cybersecurity posture has no foundation without a proper, up-to-date inventory of all your owned IT assets – whether they’re legacy systems or currently in use, on-site or in the Cloud. Conduct and maintain an inventory audit of all IT assets and identify what technologies have not been approved of, or are unknown of, to your IT leaders.
Knowing what your existing assets are isn’t enough. You must also maintain and update these networks, software, and systems to ensure they have the required support needed to stay protected and effective at detecting threats. Maintaining and updating assets also allows your IT team members to respond appropriately and immediately to threat detections.
3. Regularly Conduct Security Risk Assessments
A security risk assessment involves identifying, prioritizing, and estimating the risks to organizational operations, assets, and individuals arising from the use of information systems. These assessments are based on your organization-wide assumptions, constraints, risk tolerances, and priorities. By analyzing identified threats and vulnerabilities, the assessment determines the likelihood of risk occurrence and the potential impact towards your organization.
Conducting an initial risk assessment is highly beneficial to your organization, and it’s wise to maintain a current assessment regularly. This enables your senior leaders and executives to engage in real-time risk management. It also supports the organization’s risk monitoring efforts and minimizes future assessment costs.
4. Implement an Incident Response Plan
Having an incident response plan not only a HIPAA requirement, but it’s also vital for recovering from a security breach. To effectively mitigate risk and ensure the plan’s success, it’s essential for your organization to develop a comprehensive, tailored response plan and practice it regularly. This plan should also include encrypted data backup procedures, a disaster recovery plan, an organization-wide emergency mode of operation plan, and a communication strategy between IT and legal teams.
There are too many negative consequences to allow for a half-baked, underprepared, and unpracticed plan to exist. Data breaches are costly (averaging $11 million per breach in 2023), can damage the reputation of healthcare organizations, and can detrimentally disrupt patient care, many times resulting in increased mortality rates.
5. Track Security Metrics
It’s important to understand your organization’s security position compared to the healthcare industry as a whole. Using metrics for data collection provides valuable insights into your security status, highlights how your security team is functioning, and equips IT leaders with the information needed to make critical improvements. Some key security metrics to track include:
- percentage of unknown and known devices logged onto your network
- number of critical vulnerabilities, found by penetration testing
- number of team members who’ve undergone cybersecurity training
- number of fully patched and up to date devices on your network
- number of known vulnerable assets
- number of times bad actors tried to gain access without authorization
- length of time that security threats went unnoticed (Mean Time to Detect)
- length of time it took your security team to respond once a threat was detected (Mean Time to Resolve)
- length of time taken to deactivate former employee access credentials
- the frequency of third party accessibility to your network (and the eventual cancelation of accessibility)
