Seven out of ten US healthcare organizations have experienced a data breach at some point, and one in three have suffered a breach in the past year, a new report by Thales shows.
All healthcare firms in the survey indicated that they use digital transformation technologies to collect, store and share sensitive data. However, at most 38% of organizations are properly encrypting this data, even though the consequences of patient data falling into the wrong hands can be particularly grave.
According to Frank Dickson of IDC, “when sensitive patient information is breached, it poses significantly longer-term risks compared to other sectors – sometimes indefinitely,” because while “credit card can be cancelled or a bank account can be closed, […] private patient data circulates endlessly which opens opportunities for various types of fraud to occur again and again from a single breach.”
Read more: Why 70% of healthcare orgs have suffered data breaches
