Hackers are after medical records, and they’re easy to steal
By Admin | April 24, 2017
The healthcare industry is far behind the banking, retail, and financial sectors when it comes to securing data. And with the implementation of electronic records, more patient data is becoming available with little or no protections.
Healthcare data poses unique problems for security. For example, unlike bank statements, healthcare data needs to be sharable so doctors and pharmacies can ensure the proper treatment for patients. However, this vulnerable data contains things other than health information that hackers want: social security numbers, insurance information, driver's license information, and credit card numbers.
A person’s data can be sold for $1,000 on the darknet, and buyers use the data in order to fill fraudulent prescriptions, steal identities, and more.
As of April 10, 2017, there were already 79 security breaches, each one affecting over 500 patients each, reported in the U.S.
For more, read “The frightening new frontier for hackers: Medical records” by Modern Healthcare.
