As digital health is embraced, there needs to be investment in cybersecurity to protect against sophisticated cyber attacks.
The research suggests in the last 12 months 99% of healthcare IT professionals have experienced cyberattacks and private health information of 42 million people that trust in the system was breached between 2016 and 2021.
Imprivata, a U.S. Digital Identity Security company, had a pulse on the state of cybersecurity by gaining insight from hundreds of frontline and executive IT security leaders in healthcare.
Their report shows an unfolding crisis on the frontline. Without cybersecurity and adoption of Zero Trust principles and supporting identity and access management solutions, the new digital healthcare environment feeds growing security risks to affect patient care.
Such as, the report highlights that 32% of doctors of osteopathic medicine (HDOs) have been forced to refer patients to other healthcare facilities. Cyberattacks have caused unnecessary delays to patient procedures, treatment schedules and tests, causing standards for acceptable patient care to plummet.
With risks remaining a constant, spending on security infrastructure is expected to grow 11.3% to reach $188.3 billion in 2023 and the risk management market will see double-digit growth through to 2024.
From spending topping $15.79 billion in 2022 and jumping to $18.83 billion in 2023, rapid action is being taken to upgrade healthcare cyber security. Digitalising healthcare to facilitate open communication channels with patients, develop clinical trials and treatments means implementing new infrastructure and data strategies to safeguard sensitive patient information.
Heightened focus on budget shortfalls for staff and labour has led to modern technologies lacking security capabilities. 57% of providers reported negative patient outcomes with 50% also complaining of more complications with medical procedures, in the 2020 Unit 42 IoT Threat Report.
According to Fierce Healthcare, there are four verification methods that IT and healthcare organisations can implement to strengthen their digital identity security: privileged access management (PAM & VPAM), single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and identity governance administration (IGA).
