When it comes to cyber security, healthcare organizations can no longer afford to merely treat it as a technical problem that can be left to a few specialists.
The growing spectrum of cyber threats—and the attendant risks to care delivery, patient safety, and the business of healthcare—cannot be mitigated by the efforts of cyber experts alone. Instead, healthcare leaders need to get everyone involved, from the board of directors to medical and support staff.
As discussed in an earlier blog post, the growing sophistication of cyber threats (as detailed in Symantec’s 2018 Internet Security Threat Report) coincides with the growing complexity of the health IT environment—leaving healthcare organizations trying to defend a broader attack surface against a growing range of threats. To make matters worse, malicious actors appear to find healthcare organizations to be especially attractive targets, as noted in the Symantec Executive Summary for Healthcare Professionals.
The first step in mitigating these threats is understanding them and their potential impact on the delivery of care and the business of healthcare, and that begins with the board of directors and hospital administrators.