Why Data Security in Healthcare Is So Critical

Ensuring data security in healthcare is critical for preserving a hospital’s operations and protecting the privacy of its patients.

Modern healthcare is increasingly reliant on digital tools to deliver effective results. However, the threat of cyberattacks is increasingly prevalent, as criminals target the sector for theft and ransom. Implementing robust data security measures is a critical necessity for healthcare groups to protect their patients and workers, deliver effective care, and maintain regulatory compliance.

Data Security vs. Data Privacy vs. Cybersecurity
While they cover some of the same ground, it is important to understand the distinction between data security, data privacy, and cybersecurity. Let's break them down:

Data Security vs. Data Privacy
The focus of data privacy is to keep data confidential, while data security focuses on protecting it from malicious activity or sabotage. In other words, private data can still be corrupted or destroyed by malware; the contents of that data are still inaccessible for unauthorized parties, but that’s not much consolation for the data owners. The purpose of data security is to prevent such destruction from happening.

Data Security vs. Cybersecurity
Technically, data security is a subset of cybersecurity, which is the overall protection of computer systems, networks, and devices along with data. Data security is exclusively focused on protecting data’s confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Cybersecurity focuses on protecting the entire digital ecosystem.

Why Does Data Security in Healthcare Matter?
You may be saying, "I'm a healthcare provider, not a cybersecurity expert. Why do I need to worry about this?" The short answer is that it still affects you. The longer answer is that modern healthcare practices rely on data to deliver care, and are also obliged to protect said data under strict federal regulations.

Care Delivery and Documentation
Healthcare providers rely on digital records every day to deliver effective care to their patients. Electronic health records (EHRs) are the primary method for many groups when it comes to recording diagnoses, treatment plans, allergies, and more. Without this information, providers cannot determine what is wrong with a patient, the medication they’ve been prescribed, or who else has treated the patient. Data security measures are critical for ensuring reliable access.

Patient Privacy and HIPAA Compliance
Healthcare groups must also implement data security measures to protect their patients and maintain regulatory compliance. A patient’s health information is often deeply personal and could be used for a range of crimes if hackers were to access it. Social Security numbers, credit card information, addresses, and more are often included in a patient’s files, and all of them are ripe for abuse.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), personal health information is considered private and must be protected against unauthorized access. Companies that fail to maintain this compliance can face severe financial penalties and even prison time for extreme cases of negligence.

Threats to Data Security in Healthcare
There are multiple threat vectors that healthcare groups must address when it comes to data security, with the most prevalent being:

-Accidental Exposure: Simple human error can lead to data being shared with the wrong group or individuals. This could include sending an email to the wrong address or losing a data storage device. Even leaving health information on an easily viewable screen can be considered a privacy violation.
-Phishing and Social Engineering: The most common type of cyberattack, phishing, involves tricking people into revealing private information such as passwords or login keys. Criminals can then use this information to compromise the entire network.
-SQL Injection: Standard Query Language requests are the standard form of communication in an application’s database. An SQL request includes a set of parameters that instruct the database on which records to retrieve. For example, a healthcare provider can search the database for every patient with a heart condition over the age of sixty who has an appointment scheduled for this month. An SQL injection adds malicious code to the query, which can also access or delete information in the database.
-Ransomware: Ransomware is a type of malware that infects devices and encrypts their stored data, making it useless without a matching decryption key. Attackers will then issue a ransom and demand payment for those decryption keys. If their demands aren’t met, the data remains encrypted and useless forever. If unchecked, ransomware can rapidly spread and infect an entire network, leaving organizations without their irreplaceable data.

Solutions and Best Practices
Given the variety of threats that healthcare faces, maintaining data security can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are proven solutions and best practices that you can follow:

-Access Control: The first step towards ensuring data security is controlling who can access it in the first place. This includes both physical and digital means of access control, such as RFID cards that only work with medical computers that can scan RFID tags and allow access. This ensures that only authorized personnel can access the facility’s network and data.
-Data Encryption: One of HIPAA’s most important requirements is that private health data remains encrypted when not being used. This means that the data has been converted from a readable format into an unreadable one, and can only be decrypted with the correct key. This means that even if criminals manage to access or steal the data, they cannot read or interact with it.
-Data Loss Prevention: Physical and digital redundancies are critical for protecting data in case it is damaged or destroyed. Storing data off-site or across multiple servers helps ensure that backups are available, even if a cyberattack or natural disaster destroys the primary copy.
Incident Response: Incident response plans help prepare healthcare groups for when a data breach occurs. This means having a team of professionals with a wide range of skills, including IT, legal, PR, and more, equipped with the right tools. This lets them detect, analyze, contain, and destroy data intrusions and communicate with other stakeholders throughout the process.
-Vulnerability Assessments: The best way to find vulnerabilities in a system is to put it through a simulated attack. This often takes the form of “whitehat” hackers looking for weaknesses, response drills that test how employees react to a data outage or phishing attempt, and consulting with third-party specialists.

Data Security With Cybernet Manufacturing
Implementing effective measures for data security in healthcare will only grow more important as the threat of cyberattacks continues to rise. With the right equipment and training, you can continue to use your full suite of digital tools while still enjoying peace of mind.