Healthcare is more likely to be victimized by third-party data breaches than any other industry, a new report from cybersecurity researcher Black Kite found.
Healthcare accounted for 34.9 percent of third-party data breaches last year, a slight increase from 2021 and the most of any sector for the second year in a row, according to the Jan. 31 study. The report analyzed 63 third-party breaches from 2022 that resulted in a total of 298 publicly disclosed incidents.
"Lack of budget, remotely shared personal data between patients and hospital systems, and outdated software all point to avenues for hackers to infiltrate and gain access to health-related sensitive data," the authors wrote.
The study noted that a ransomware attack on debt collection firm Professional Finance Co. affected more than 650 healthcare providers.
Healthcare also took the longest of any industry to disclose the breaches, at an average of 169 days, the report found.