Healthcare cyber security: protecting patient data
Robust healthcare cyber security is crucial for the healthcare sector in order to effectively protect personal and confidential data from costly and damaging cyber security breaches.
According to Hiscox’s Cyber Readiness Report 2024, the healthcare sector remains one of the top three sectors that faced the highest median losses due to cyber attacks in 2023.
Continuity and accessibility are vital to the successful operations and outcomes of healthcare organisations. Alongside the risk of data leaks from a cyber breach, cyber attacks can also take down critical online services used for making appointments, managing prescriptions, and patient information systems.
Healthcare cyber security incidents can disrupt patient care, so investing in the right security infrastructure is a top priority for the NHS and other healthcare organisations.
How to build a robust healthcare cyber security strategy
As hospitals are storing greater amounts of data and implementing more remote and mobile devices, it’s becoming more valuable to threat actors and making the industry vulnerable to a high number of attacks.
To build a resilient defence against current attacks, the healthcare sector should consider the following strategies:
Multi-step defence
by combining multiple layers of security, such as firewalls, multi-step authentication, and intrusion detection systems, you’ll ensure sophisticated protection
Device management
as hospitals are now taking advantage of mobile and remote devices, it is important that these are kept up to date with the latest security patches to prevent breaches
Staff training
ensuring that all your employees are aware of the security measures and best practices will help prevent human error
Regular risk assessments
keeping up to date with security measures and regularly identifying vulnerabilities will be you in line with the current threat landscape
Disaster recovery and backup
have a plan in place to recover from an attack is vital to restore you back to working order as quickly as possible
Disaster recovery and backup: cyber security for healthcare
Public sector wide budget constraints have resulted in disaster recovery becoming less of a priority for a lot of healthcare organisations, with many now having an outdated recovery plan – or no plan at all. However, digital transformation across the sector is growing as healthcare moves into more modern ways of working with paperless solutions. This is making cyber security for healthcare, including backup and recovery, an important consideration to protect patient data and continuity of care.
As the cyber security landscape continues to evolve and healthcare remains a prime target, disaster recovery and back up needs to become a key focus to protect these vital organisations.
The benefits of disaster recovery and backup in healthcare
Disaster recovery and backup planning are critical for healthcare cyber security, helping to ensure the availability, integrity, and confidentiality of critical data and systems.
Disaster recovery and backup enables healthcare organisations to:
Minimise downtime
quickly recover from disasters or system failure, reducing downtime and minimising the impact on patient care
Protect patient data
prevents patient data from being lost, stolen, or compromised
Ensure continuity of care
safeguards patient care to ensure they can continue to get the care they need during a disaster or other unexpected event
Simplify compliance
supports healthcare organisations to meet regulatory requirements for data protection and security
Improve patient and employee safety and wellbeing
helps healthcare organisations to identify potential risks and hazards and take steps to prevent or mitigate them, reducing the risks of adverse events
Enhances organisational resilience
trains organisations in how to maintain operations and continue to provide high-quality patient care during unexpected events
Phoenix Protect – Active Response
Our Phoenix Protect – Active Response managed IT security service, supports healthcare organisations with attack detection, threat visibility, security, and threat response.
This service leverages Microsoft Sentinel technology to proactively identify threats and our cyber security analysts support you with a targeted response to manage them.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
SASE is a security framework that combines wide area networking and security solutions into a converged cloud-delivered platform. This platform securely connects users and systems to apps and resources.
Users can only access SASE if it is approved. The platform is fully cloud native and you can work from anywhere with full protection, making it perfect for healthcare organisations that need cyber security solutions distributed across a number of different locations.
Our strategic healthcare partners
Talk to our healthcare specialists today
Arrange a free chat with one of our healthcare specialists today to discuss how to effectively protect your confidential patient data from evolving data breaches and cyber attacks.
You can also email us at [email protected] or call 01904 562200 – whatever works best for you.