News Feature | January 6, 2015

Risk Of Breaches ‘Higher Than Ever'

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Government IT News For VARs

According to Experian Data Breach Resolution's second annual report, the risk of breaches is “higher than ever” for healthcare organizations.

Healthcare’s risk of data breaches is “higher than ever” according to the second annual report from Experian Data Breach Resolution. Nearly 50 percent of organizations across all industries reported a breach in the last year. According to iHealth Beat, these incidents led to 48 percent of organizations investing in security technologies and 73 percent of organizations developing data breach response plans.

“It has been an explosive year with an increase in the number of data breaches and identity theft cases over last year, so we are sharing our perspectives with the industry to help businesses navigate this complex environment,” said Michael Bruemmer, vice president at Experian Data Breach Resolution in a press release. “It is more important than ever for companies to prepare for a data breach and stay ahead of the game.”

Healthcare IT News writes more hackers will target cloud-based data in the coming year, stealing usernames and passwords. “We expect this increase in hackers targeting online credentials such as consumer passwords and usernames to gain keys to the castle, with the likelihood that compromising one record can often give access to all sorts of other information stored online,” says the report.

Employees could be a threat as well, according to the report. “Although businesses will increase focus on security protocols against external hackers this year, we predict that many will miss the mark on protecting against insider threat.” says Experian.

“The growing number of vulnerabilities and the sheer size of the healthcare industry led to an increase in widely publicized security incidents this year, representing about 42 percent of all major data breaches reported in 2014 ,” said Bruemmer. “We expect this number will continue to grow until the industry comes up with a stronger solution to improve its cybersecurity strategies.”