Dive Brief:
- A new report from MeriTalk has concluded that healthcare security issues cost U.S. hospitals about $1.6 billion per year, or about $810,000 per breach.
- According to the researchers, 61% of hospitals in the U.S. saw a security breach or loss of data in the last year.
- Of the reported breaches, roughly 58% were caused by malware or viruses, 42% were caused by external cyberattacks, and 38% were caused by a breach in the hospital's physical security.
Dive Insight:
It's actually not such a shock that healthcare organizations are being raided on a regular basis. The evidence suggests that they're not doing enough to protect their data. For example, only 42% are developing encryption initiatives, and 44% are getting single sign-on and authentication for their web-based software, according to MeriTalk. Let's hope more organizations catch up soon.