Dive Brief:
- Eighty-one percent of health IT leaders responding to a survey said their systems had been compromised by cyberattacks.
- External attackers were cited as the most common culprit.
- Sixty-six percent of health plan executives responded they were prepared in the face of a cyber attack, compared with 53% of healthcare providers.
Dive Insight:
The KPMG survey, conducted by Forbes Insights, queried 223 executives representing 161 providers and 101 health plans, all of which had revenue of at least $500 million.
Sixty-five percent of the respondents noted external attackers as an area of vulnerability, followed by 48% citing shared data with third parties. Perhaps most disturbing: Only 16% of the executives said their organizations had not been compromised in the past two years, with the remaining executives unsure.
“I would argue that many of the providers aren't even aware that their systems have been compromised,” Michael Ebert, head of KPMG's health and life sciences cyber practice, told Modern Healthcare. “They don't necessarily know who's in their systems or what's occurred.”