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A common saying about the digital world is” if any service is free, then you are a product.” This is as simple that free services that we use in today’s life make their profit by supplying our data to advertisers. Here it’s crucial for healthcare IT professionals to take the initiative towards safeguarding data privacy systems, whether to protect from external threats (hacking and cybercrimes) or internal threats that involve access abuse from internal users. The number of data health breaches is increasing exponentially daily, and it doesn’t seem to slow down. For data security measures, it’s essential to understand what is worth of health care data for hackers and others. In this article, I will elaborate on the value of health security data and shed some light on the healthcare policy HIPAA (Health insurance portability and accountability Act). So, if you want to find out more, continue your reading to the end.
How much secure is our healthcare data?
As stated by the HHS office for civil rights, nearly two healthcare data breaches were reported each day during last year. Records show that from March 2021 to February 2022, there were 723 data breaches are reported. This includes loss of data, unauthorized access to accounts, jacking, and many other ways health data breaches can occur. From this, we can better assume a level of data security for the health industry.
Most recent breaches in the Healthcare sector
Healthcare data and security is vulnerable to ransomware attacks, and we can see them being exposed during the Hancock attack in January 2018. It is stated by healthcare IT news that the attack was sophisticated, calculating, and motivated by financial gain. Attack made staff to shut down their systems where patients’ personally identifiable information was held, hostage.
Another attack in May 2019 similarly, in May 2019, the American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA) reported an eight-month healthcare data breach of around 20 Million patients. It was told that exposed information was sensitive. This attack diverts the focus of healthcare providers toward the data security risk of the health sector.
Type of personal data vulnerable to attacks
Health care records are the most vulnerable type of personal data. I would appreciate HIPAA privacy security policies, an apparent reason that emphasizes its importance. Violation of HIPAA is a serious problem, so, it’s mandatory to know when and who needs HIPAA training. Suppose can nurses give information over the phone? What if this information gets into the wrong hands? The person involved will be jailed and will give felony charges or may be fired.
How is healthcare data vulnerable?
This is because the information contained can be used to harm the owner intentionally or unintentionally. This can lead to untold threats and damages. In some cases, identity-theft as they feature a more complete version of the patient’s background. Other than this, records include (PII) personally identifiable information. This can give access to address, contact details, bank card information, insurance, and other private and sensitive information. Hackers and companies can benefit a lot by accessing this particular information.
How Gender and age play a role
Gender and age play an important role in making data more valuable for criminals. Age accounts for its value. You can easily understand this as the males between the ages of 18-25 are among the most viable individuals in a population and data for hackers becomes more valuable when employed. Identity thieves most steal information of earning males from the top data market. Basically, they target wealthy consumers from the market.
Other valuable types of data
Personal data includes passwords, social security numbers, and payment details. It is not easy to get all this information at once without proper planning. This is why it is seen that the criminals involved in these breaches were entirely professional. Other than this information, card details, and payment details from different sources. Physical address and in some cases marital status are also worthy for criminals. This further extends to photos and videos.
The reason why healthcare data is worthy
Healthcare data on the black market is valuable as it contains all necessary sensitive information. According to a report by Trustwave, the worth of healthcare data on the black market is between $250 per record. Institute of Ponemon stated that a reported value associated with remediating breaches are estimated at $740,000, and if the third party causes a data breach, it costs even more. Other than that, healthcare data is valuable for identity thieves who steal information and get access.
How HIPPA helps protect healthcare data
HIPPA is helpful as its healthcare policy protects the patients’ confidential information. Also known as the “Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information”. This rule allows to maintain data integrity and make the transfer to other parties safe and secure. The HIPPA privacy rule covers names, addresses, social security numbers, etc., and protects patients’ electronically saved handwriting. Any image or videos provided by the patient is also covered. To learn more about privacy rules , open the link.
Conclusion
Data security and personal privacy significantly impact your life. In this regard, healthcare data breaching is increasing day by day. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPPA or covered entities may share information with associates and vendors as a part of the process. These business associates can be anyone from accounting firms to medical transcriptionists. That in return puts a huge risk to healthcare organizations. Lastly, during the pandemic healthcare industry took an even bigger hit. Hospitals dealt with maximum capacity around the globe, and a large amount of healthcare data was put to EMR. This maximized the risk of data being breached by hackers and other third parties. The best way to stay safe is to take precautionary measures and fulfill HIPAA requirements. Guidelines provided by HIPAA are indeed helpful in reducing the risk. If you want to learn more about the rules and regulations of HIPPA visit the link.