The threat of data breaches in healthcare isn't new, but over the past few months, the industry has renewed its focus on protecting and securing healthcare information.
Verizon has released its annual Data Breach Investigation Report, which outlines trends, findings and data relating to breach events. Here are five key findings from the report.
1. In six out of ten cases, cyberattackers are able to compromise an organization within minutes. There is a "detection deficit" between when attackers compromise an organization and when the organization discovers the attack.
2. Seventy-five percent of cyberattacks spread from one victim to another within 24 hours, and more than 40 percent hit a second organization in less than one hour.
3. Phishing remains a prominent means to hack into a network or server. More than 67 percent of cyber espionage patterns feature phishing, according to the report. Twenty-three percent of recipients open phishing messages, and 11 percent click on attachments within the message. Within one hour, nearly one half of recipients open emails and click on phishing links.
4. Mobile devices don't appear to be prominent pathways to compromise data. Just 0.03 percent of smartphones per week (on Verizon's network) were infected with "higher-grade" malicious code.
5. The report indicates between 70 and 90 percent of malware samples are unique to an organization.
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