In a recent press release, Fortified Health Security, a leader in cybersecurity, compliance, and managed services, dedicated to helping healthcare organizations overcome operational and regulatory challenges, released a mid-year update to its annual healthcare cybersecurity Horizon Report.
The report highlights the growing number of cybersecurity attacks hitting the healthcare industry in the form of phishing campaigns, ransomware attacks, and breaches initiated through email. In fact, email attacks accounted for almost 28% of all reported breaches thus far in 2018, an increase from 2017.
Other mid-year cybersecurity data highlighted in the report includes:
- Provider organizations have been compromised more this year than health plans and appear to be more heavily targeted. Through the first five months of 2018, there have been 149 breaches reported with over 2.8 million patients impacted versus 134 breaches reported and 2.0 million patients impacted during the same period in 2017.
- The number of reported breaches by Health Plans and Business Associates has significantly increased through the first five months of 2018. There were 24 breaches reported by Health Plans versus 15 during the same period in 2017, representing a 60% increase in the number of Health Plan entities impacted.
- There were 12 breaches reported by Business Associates versus seven during the same period in 2017, representing over a 70% increase in the number of Business Associates impacted. The total number of patients impacted by those breaches increased over 40%.