Jun 4
2021
The Password Problem: Why Cybercriminals Target Healthcare
Cybersecurity has been a major concern facing many digitalized businesses. Hackers have developed more sophisticated ways to breach security systems and steal essential data from businesses. Such security issues may cause significant financial loss and bring a business down to its knees.
Healthcare is one of the sectors that has been hard hit by cybercrime. This is due to the sector’s adaptation of technological advancement used in areas like storing patients’ data. Unfortunately, while the technology has positively impacted the provision of services, it’s also created an opportunity for hackers to attack and steal information. As a result, healthcare becomes an easy target for cybercriminals due to the nature of their information system.
Reasons For Cyberattacks On Healthcare
As stated, the healthcare sector isn’t immune to cyberattacks and other forms of security breaches from criminals. These attacks are being targeted due to the many loopholes that the sector has.
Here are some of the reasons why healthcare is targeted:
- The Password Problem
One of the major concerns affecting healthcare is the lack of good passwords. An explanation of the password problem is when healthcare workers don’t set strong passwords on their devices for fear of forgetting them. In turn, they end up using weak passwords, such as their phone numbers or names.
This makes it easy for attackers to breach security and steal important information. In addition, colleagues can guess simple passwords, and they can use them to access your accounts. The password problem affects many businesses, as well as individuals. You should, therefore, be creative with your password and make it unique.
- Lucrative Medical Records
Medical records always contain important information that could be lucrative to hackers when they sell them. Such information includes names, contact information, and credit card numbers when patients pay bills through bank cards. The attackers can then use these pieces of information to directly attack the patients or sell them to other people.
Because some medical facilities aren’t well-protected from security breaches, the patients’ data aren’t safe. Therefore, attackers use these loopholes to launch attacks on people.