A stolen credit card record can be sold for as low as a quarter while a medical record can be sold for $50. Why is that? When a credit card is stolen, the owner is able to cancel it as soon as he/she notices fraudulent activity and then they are also able to dispute the charges. But think about a medical record – changing your Social Security number, birth date, home address and medical history isn’t that simple, even impossible.
The problem becomes much bigger than just financial identity theft. Think about what would happen to a person whose medical record is stolen and being used to obtain free healthcare and subscriptions. Then think about the customer going in for an emergency with the wrong records on file and getting the wrong blood transfusion.
Protecting patients’ medical records should be every hospital’s and physician’s office’s concern. But with many issues in the healthcare industry vying for attention, security may fall through the cracks.
Keystroke logger malware was recently discovered on Muhlenberg Community Hospital computers in Kentucky—but it could have gone undetected for nearly four years. Potentially compromised data includes patient names, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license/state identification numbers, health plan information, financial account numbers, payment card information and employment information.
Though there’s currently no evidence the information has been used maliciously, it’s just another reminder that medical information is an intriguing target for hackers. Netsurion, a provider of remotely-managed data and network security services for multi-location business, just released this infographic on the value of a medical record. It’s insightful.
Guest post by Joseph Schorr, director of advanced security solutions, Bomgar.
Moving into 2016, healthcare organizations will continue to be one of the most attractive targets for hackers. Last year, attacks against healthcare organizations were up 125 percent from 2010 and cost the industry $6 billion, according to the Ponemon Institute.
As illustrated in the Anthem and Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield data breaches, hackers are moving beyond phishing attacks and random malware drops, and adopting methods that are more sophisticated. By leveraging third-party access and privileged account credentials (such as those held by IT security professionals, IT managers and database administrators) to exploit IT systems, hackers can gain an unrestricted and unmonitored attack foothold on the network. Once they have this foothold, they are remaining inside the victim’s environment for an incredible span of time – on average more than 200 days.
With this trend continuing, healthcare organizations can expect to see an uptick in these types of attacks within the industry. To combat this rise, healthcare organizations will need to focus on shoring up IT security around vendors and other third parties in the year ahead. The following are areas where they can concentrate attention to aid in this effort:
Reevaluate the legacy
In particular, third parties such as vendors are particularly juicy targets because they often use VPN and other legacy access methods to access systems. Examining and implementing more secure, sophisticated remote access and privileged access solutions is a good place to start strengthening IT security for the new year.
It’s a common misconception that a VPN guide is a secure way to provide third-party vendors with network access. The problem lies in that an organization cannot ensure that third-party vendors’ security policies and practices are as strenuous as internal practices. If a criminal compromises a valid VPN connection, they have an open tunnel to an organization’s network and the sensitive data within.
Be in control
For too many healthcare organizations, vendors have more access than they need or their access can’t be monitored or restricted. It’s a scary question: Does your IT department know who their privileged users are and what level of IT permissions they have? If not, taking stock of those users, the systems to which they need access, and when they must access them is a critical undertaking for 2016. Following that, the organization can set access parameters that allow those privileged users to be productive and gain access to tools, data and systems they need to do their jobs, while limiting risk. Proactively controlling and monitoring access to critical systems can help tighten IT security within healthcare organizations.
Guest post by Todd Weller, vice president of product development, Hexis Cyber Solutions
According to a 2014 Identity Theft Resource Center Report, the healthcare industry has officially surpassed other major industries and now accounts for 42.3 percent of all data breaches recorded last year. As the number of patient medical records transitions to a digital sharing model, the potential cost of data breaches is now substantially higher than for those less regulated, like retail and public services. It’s clear that the industry is increasingly vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks; hackers are after vital patient information such as social security numbers and past medical records. With limited budgets and priorities often, and rightfully, placed on patient care, many healthcare organizations lack the resources to implement stronger security levels. Despite these constraints, with the right technology and best practices in place healthcare organizations can position themselves for success.
The costs associated with “damage control” for many healthcare providers is steep with the annual cap on fines for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and HITECH Act of 2009, up from a maximum of $25,000 per year to $1.5 million. And fines are only part of the financial burden. Investigation and legal efforts, business downtime and decreased credibility all drive up costs even further.
Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations are still facing challenges when it comes to effectively communicating and collaborating on security. In many of these healthcare organizations, there is a department for privacy and compliance and then a separate department for enterprise IT security. Functional groups are often siloed and share very little information with each other. This becomes a major issue in the event of a breach as neither side is able to understand the full spectrum of the threat without the others’ data.
The consequences of the gap between compliance and IT security becomes evident when dealing with insider threats. An individual’s actions may look legitimate but when correlated against other activity, could indicate that malicious activity is occurring. A workstation that has always previously accessed clinical data or some other patient information doesn’t raise suspicion. But a subtle, steady increase in traffic, say of five or ten percent, correlated with communication to an unauthorized or new IP address, likely indicates a breach. The same example could apply to an external threat with a malicious actor using social engineering methods to entice an unwitting user to download malware. Once inside the network, the malware can replicate the very same scenario. Either way, a breach has occurred. The IT security department may discover the situation, investigate and handle it and move on to the next task. But without visibility into this type of data, how would the compliance department learn about possible data leakage and take the necessary steps to investigate and report?
