by Renee Chronister, CEO, Parameter Security

Here’s another heart-stopper. The latest Ponemon Institute study reveals 60% of healthcare providers had more than 2 security breaches in the last year with the average breach costing them $2 million. Whoa! It then goes on to state that 70% of hospitals say protecting patient data is not a priority.

Healthcare providers in the Ponemon study also say they lack resources, trained personnel, policies and procedures to safeguard patient records. 58% claim they have little or no confidence in their ability to protect records in their possession. Forget WikiLeaks, as a hacker, this is music to my ears.

So what this really means for healthcare is that something has got to change. Specifically, the mindset that data security is not a priority and that all I have to be is HIPAA compliant to be secure. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hacked HIPAA compliant healthcare providers but I guess telling your patients, personnel and anyone else affected by the data breach that “I was HIPAA compliant” is better than “Data security isn’t a priority” but I’m guessing that will still go over like a lead balloon.

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Tags: data security breach, healthcare information security, healthcare information security breaches, healthcare information system, healthcare information systems, Information Security, information security breach, information security breaches, information security policies, information security services, network security breach, network security breaches, Security Breach, security breach notification, security breaches