Survey: 84% of Healthcare Orgs Had a Cyber Incident in the Past 12 Months

According to a Jan. 24 post from the HIPAA Journal, a recent survey of 1,309 healthcare IT and security professionals by Netwrix discovered 84% detected a cyberattack or intrusion in the past 12 months.

Account hijacking and phishing were the most common types of attacks.

The post said, “Account compromise was the most common type of attack for organizations with cloud-based infrastructure and occurred at 74% of surveyed healthcare organizations, but just 44% of organizations with on-premises infrastructure. For organizations with on-premises infrastructure, phishing was the most common type of attack with 63% of respondents having experienced at least one phishing attack in the past 12 months. Phishing was the second most common type of incident for organizations with cloud-based infrastructure, with attacks reported by 62% of respondents.”

The post added that healthcare workers are less likely to get regular security training. Cyberattacks also are more likely to cause financial damage than attacks on other sectors.

The post added, “Across all industries, 60% of organizations experienced financial damage following a cyberattack, whereas 69% of cyberattacks on healthcare organizations resulted in financial damage. 57% of respondents estimated financial damage of greater than $10,000, with 36% stating the financial damage was greater than $50,001.”