Phishing Top Threat to US Healthcare

New study by the Health care Info and Administration Systems Society (HIMSS) has observed phishing and ransomware attacks are the most major security incidents impacting healthcare companies of all forms.

The finding emerged from the 2021 HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey that questioned 167 healthcare cybersecurity professionals about security incidents their corporations experienced seasoned in the earlier twelve months.

Virtually fifty percent (45%) stated the most substantial security breach they had knowledgeable in the former twelve months was a phishing attack, although a additional 17% named ransomware as their worst aggressor. 

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Requested about the trigger of their most major breach, more than fifty percent (57%) stated phishing was to blame. Negligent insider action was named by 7% of respondents as the trigger of the most significant security incident. 

Although email-based phishing attacks accounted for most (71%) of the sizeable security breaches, 27% had endured a significant vishing (voice phishing) incident and 21% reported they had been the victim of a considerable smishing (SMS phishing) attack.

In 15% of attacks, the first point of compromise transpired by means of social engineering. On the other hand, the most popular route into an business for attackers was phishing, which accounted for 71% of attacks.

Other vital results had been that human mistake was the induce of 19% of data breaches. A further more 15% of breaches had been pinned on the use of legacy software package that is no longer supported. 

Questioned about the impression of security breaches, 32% stated breaches disrupted techniques that impacted business functions. More than a quarter (26%) explained security breaches disrupted IT methods, and 22% mentioned security breaches resulted in data breaches or info leakage. 

Fewer respondents (21%) mentioned security breaches impacted medical treatment, and only 17% explained the most important security incident resulted in money reduction.

HIMSS stated: “The findings of the 2021 HIMSS Health care Cybersecurity Study advise that health care corporations even now have sizeable difficulties to prevail over. 

“These limitations to development contain tight security budgets, escalating legacy footprints and the developing quantity of cyber-attacks and compromises.”

The society said that while essential security controls have not been completely implemented at a lot of companies, “possibly the greatest vulnerability is the human factor.”