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The Healthcare industry saw an increase in total breaches, mostly in the form of Crimeware, which includes ransomware attacks. Lost and stolen assets were also a concerning pattern—one that’s often hard to confirm as a breach, due to the difficulty of determining whether the data was accessed or not.
Threat actors
51%External
48% Internal
2% Partner
1% Multiple
Actor motives
88% Financial
4% Fun
3% Convenience
Data compromised
77% Personal
67% Medical
18% Other
18% Credentials
Considerations
External attacks are on the rise
Insider misuse breaches dropped this year, as did breaches involving multiple actors—which occurs when external and internal actors team up to steal data and commit financial fraud. And while healthcare is the sector with the highest amount of internal actor breaches, external actor breaches were slightly more common.
Accidental vulnerability, intentional attacks
Within this sector, misdelivery was the most common mistake. This usually occurs when someone sends an email with sensitive data to the wrong recipients or when a mass paper mailer is sent to the wrong addresses. Web applications were the second most common target due to the growth of patient portals and other online tools, which are rich troves of personal data.
Be prepared to react fast
Cybercriminals can compromise a system and capture data within seconds, so it’s ideal to have a strategy to identify threats as they happen. It’s also important to monitor slower-moving threats, like an insider sharing small amounts of data each week with an accomplice.
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See the latest trends in cybersecurity.
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Explore the results of the 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) and see what patterns emerged across the thousands of security incidents, from companies both big and small.
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