Cybersecurity training and its importance

Cybersecurity and HIPAA are very closely related. If you want to ensure HIPAA compliance, cybersecurity measures are necessary.

HIPAA: It states that PHI (Protected Health Information) is secure against inappropriate access by both internal and external. 

Cybersecurity: It ensures that patient sensitive information is protected.  

However, every day a new cybersecurity incident occurs, leading to data breaches and compromises several patients' health information. So let's know how HIPAA cybersecurity training can help ensure compliance and reduce the issues and why healthcare is a common target.

In a world full of networks, they must protect the sensitive information patient's against the eyes of hackers, spammers, and identity thieves. Because of this increase in threat, healthcare organizations are stepping up their cybersecurity game. The IT consulting firm is now hiring professionals trained with a bachelor's degree in cybersecurity. And they will be responsible for keeping the patient information safe and accessible only to their authorized members. 

Why is healthcare the biggest target?  

One of the biggest reasons is that cybersecurity service providers are continuously connected to the internet; you can see examples of Saas in healthcare. They have to deal with activities like PHI and all of their operations. It makes the provider more likely towards the hacking attempts as data is present online. 

It is not an option for healthcare providers to go offline if the internet goes down as their services will be down. Everyone from doctors to nurses has to be connected to the internet to log in and work. So data breaches are quite common in the healthcare sector.

Another big reason is that the data is extremely valuable in the black market, even more than the credit card information. PHI is a moneymaker in the black market as it consists of social security numbers, medical information, and insurance details. 

PHI is expensive because it cannot alter the data connected to patients' health conditions (medical conditions, medications, medical history, etc.). In contrast, a person can easily change the credit card information. Medical identity theft is quite common as after buying from the black market, they can easily assume victims' identity and use their services illegally and cost a lot of money. 

A well-known reason is that healthcare providers are easy to target as they do not have strong cybersecurity consulting service measures in place. As per the report, only 5% of the IT budget is going to spend on cybersecurity. And over 80% of breaches were reported because hospitals chose to allocate funding inpatient care rather than cybersecurity. 

It reported that hospitals would be spending budget on IT consulting firms to strengthen cybersecurity. But, the covid 19 pandemics have thrown everyone out of balance and made the hospital's cybersecurity more vulnerable than ever.   

What should be done? 

In hospitals, there are already HIPAA rules that they have to follow to raise fines. But as mentioned above, the majority of healthcare providers wish to spend less on cybersecurity services. It might save their money for a short time, but it will haunt them back in the long run in the form of data breaches. 

If such breaches happen, they need to notify patients, the healthcare sector, and in some cases, include media also and investigate the reason for a data breach. They also need to determine the number of affected patients and take appropriate actions to minimize the issue. For example, provide them a complimentary service to affected patients. These activities can cost a significant amount of cost and can be easily avoided if proper cybersecurity service occurs. 

Moreover, incidents also occur in hospitals at the time of breaches due to lack of training and internal breaches. The lack of training can lead employees to open suspicious links sent by hackers and not ensure that security measures take place regularly. It includes encrypting data, complex passwords, etc. 

Important to provide cybersecurity training 

Only cybersecurity measures will not enhance security; employees also need to stay sharp-eyed. It is necessary to give effective training on how to keep PHI secure. You can provide HIPAA cybersecurity training to your employees by HIPAA Ready. It is robust compliance that simplifies the administrative burden. For higher-end cybersecurity services, contact an IT consulting firm.