By Lyanne Paustenbach, Healthcare Solutions Marketing Director
Health system breach makes headline news…again. With new vulnerabilities being discovered every day, it’s not a matter of if, but a question of when.
Like in the song made famous by Janis Joplin, a healthcare breach, is a like a “Piece of My Heart”. Personal and costly.
Given this high and potentially growing breach rate, ServiceNow commissioned the Ponemon Institute to survey nearly 3,000 cybersecurity professionals. Of those surveyed, 322 were from healthcare organizations.
58% of respondents who reported a breach said that they were breached due to a vulnerability for which a patch was available but not applied.
While all are aware of the importance of cyber-security, with a vigilant focus on securing a health system’s infrastructure, 52% of security team respondents were held back by manual processes and disconnected systems – compromising their ability to respond in a timely manner with 11 days or more lost coordinating patching.
The study also uncovered adding security professionals to the problem, does not equal better security. Even if you could, according to ISACA, a global non-profit IT advocacy group, the global shortage of cybersecurity professionals will reach 2 million by 2019.
The cost to do nothing, is not an option. According to a recent 2018 Ponemon study, for every record lost is $148 and rises to more than $408 for healthcare organizations. Unless security teams adopt new approaches, these will likely rise.
The good news is that these barriers are not insurmountable. By automating routine processes and taking care of basic hygiene items, security teams can significantly reduce the risk of a breach.
You can protect and keep your organizations heart and health data secure. The time to act is now. Download the State of Vulnerability Response in Healthcare and for more best practices visit http://servicenow.com/healthcare?referenceSource=community.
