Cybersecurity for Healthcare: Protecting Patient Data in the Digital Age

The healthcare industry is a prime target for data breaches due to the sensitive nature of the medical and financial information it holds. Stolen patient records can sell for anywhere between $250 and $1,000 each on the Dark Web. Compare this to credit card numbers at $5 and Social Security numbers at merely $1 each.

Patient records contain a wealth of personal and medical information, including names, addresses, medical histories, insurance details, and even Social Security numbers. This data is highly sought after by cyber criminals for various malicious purposes, such as identity theft, insurance fraud, and blackmail. What’s more, the data isn’t easily canceled like a stolen credit card number, meaning it has long-term usage possibilities.

In the sections ahead, we look at the types of cyberattacks that put patient data at risk, cybersecurity solutions for the healthcare industry, and how Gurucul helps healthcare organizations secure protected health information (PHI).

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations have some of the most challenging environments to secure. They have geographically dispersed clinical locations, large amounts of sensitive patient and financial data, a range of transitory mobile devices and users, connected life-saving medical devices (known as the Internet of Medical Things, or IoMT), and numerous healthcare applications and systems. The attack surface is often large and vulnerable. Thus, it’s no surprise healthcare is a leading target of cyber criminals’ intent on obtaining lucrative sensitive data or on disrupting services for ransom payouts.

At the same time, this industry has some of the strictest data protection regulations, with HIPAA, HITECH, and PCI DSS among the regulatory guardrails. Compliance is a constant challenge; especially as so much sensitive data is required to be stored in Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

Cybersecurity is an essential protective measure for every healthcare organization, from the smallest practices to the largest hospitals. Patient safety and privacy both demand strong cybersecurity measures in healthcare.

Healthcare Data Security Stakeholders

The healthcare industry involves a wide range of stakeholders who play different roles in protecting patients’ protected health information. Here are some key stakeholders:

Patients

At the center of it all, patients are responsible for providing up-to-date and accurate information and for verifying its use in patient care and billing services.

Healthcare Providers

Doctors, nurses, physicians, surgeons, specialists, and other medical professionals who provide direct patient care interact with PHI as they diagnose, treat, and manage patients’ medical conditions. Their input is also essential for the financial (billing) aspects of care.

Hospitals and Clinics

These are healthcare facilities where patients receive medical services. Every action they take on behalf of a patient requires interaction with PHI.

Health Insurance Companies

Insurance companies provide coverage and financial protection against healthcare expenses. They utilize PHI to determine eligibility for services and to process invoices for services rendered.

Healthcare IT and Data Management Companies

These entities develop and manage healthcare information systems, electronic health records (EHRs), health data analytics platforms, and other technologies that facilitate efficient healthcare operations and secure data management.

Types of Cyber Attacks in the Healthcare

The healthcare industry is susceptible to various types of cyberattacks. Some common types of cyberattacks that of healthcare cybersecurity include:

Data Breaches

Data breaches involve unauthorized access, disclosure, or theft of sensitive data. Healthcare organizations are particularly vulnerable to data breaches due to the value of medical records and personally identifiable information (PII) they store.

Insider Threats

Insider threats refer to malicious or negligent actions by individuals with authorized access to healthcare systems and data. These insiders may intentionally misuse or steal data, or their actions may unintentionally lead to data breaches.

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that encrypts data on a victim’s system, rendering it inaccessible until a ransom is paid. Healthcare organizations are common targets for ransomware attacks, which can disrupt healthcare operations and compromise patient care. Private patient data is sometimes stolen and sold on the Dark Web as the result of a ransomware attack, regardless of whether the ransom is paid.

Phishing Attacks

Phishing involves tricking individuals into revealing sensitive information or downloading malware through deceptive emails, websites, or messages. Healthcare employees may be targeted to gain unauthorized access to patient data, financial information, or login credentials.

Malware Infections

Malware, including viruses, worms, and trojans, can infiltrate healthcare networks and systems, compromising data integrity and confidentiality. Malware can be introduced through malicious email attachments, infected websites, or compromised devices.

Supply Chain Attacks

Healthcare organizations rely on a complex ecosystem of providers, vendors, and suppliers. Attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in the supply chain to gain unauthorized access to healthcare systems or introduce malicious code into software or hardware components.

Emerging Threats in Healthcare Cybersecurity

As the healthcare sector evolves technologically, new and sophisticated cyber threats emerge. Healthcare organizations must stay vigilant and adapt their cybersecurity strategies to address these emerging risks:

IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) Attacks

 – The proliferation of connected medical devices has expanded the attack surface for cybercriminals. Vulnerabilities in IoMT devices can be exploited to gain unauthorized access to patient data or even manipulate device functionality, posing significant risks to both data security and patient safety. Read more about healthcare IoT in our blog, “IoT in Healthcare: Revolutionizing Patient Care with Secure Healthcare IoT Solutions.” 

AI-Powered Attacks

 – Cybercriminals leverage artificial intelligence to create more sophisticated and targeted attacks. These AI-driven threats can adapt to security measures, making them harder to detect and mitigate. Healthcare organizations must employ equally advanced AI-driven security solutions to stay ahead of these evolving threats.

Cloud Security Breaches

– New vulnerabilities arise as healthcare organizations increasingly migrate to cloud-based systems for data storage and management. Misconfigured cloud settings or inadequate security measures can lead to large-scale data exposures. Robust cloud security strategies are essential to protect sensitive healthcare data in these environments.

5G Network Exploits

– The rollout of 5G networks promises enhanced connectivity for healthcare services, but it also introduces new attack vectors. Cybercriminals may exploit vulnerabilities in 5G infrastructure to launch attacks on connected healthcare systems. Healthcare organizations must be prepared to secure their networks and devices in this new high-speed, highly connected environment.

Deepfake Social Engineering

– Advanced AI techniques are used to create convincing deepfake audio and video, which can be used in sophisticated social engineering attacks targeting healthcare professionals. These attacks can potentially lead to unauthorized access to sensitive systems or data.

Quantum Computing Threats

 – While still in its early stages, the advent of quantum computing poses a significant future threat to current encryption methods used to protect healthcare data. Healthcare organizations must start preparing for post-quantum cryptography to ensure long-term data security.

Biometric Data Theft

– As healthcare facilities increasingly use biometric data for patient identification and access control, this sensitive information becomes a new target for cybercriminals. Protecting biometric data requires specialized security measures to prevent unauthorized access and potential misuse.

These emerging threats underscore the need for healthcare organizations to stay vigilant and continuously update their cybersecurity strategies. By leveraging advanced security analytics and AI-driven threat detection systems, such as those offered by Gurucul, healthcare providers can better protect against established and emerging cyber threats.

How Cyber Threat Prevention in Healthcare Works

Cyber threat prevention in healthcare involves implementing various measures to identify, mitigate, and prevent potential cyber threats from compromising the security and integrity of healthcare systems and patient data. Organizations generally start with a comprehensive risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities, potential threats, and their potential impact on healthcare systems and patient data.

Next, they develop and implement security policies and procedures that outline best practices, guidelines, and protocols for protecting healthcare systems and data. Then it’s time to implement security measures to protect against both internal and external threats. Organizations must secure all endpoints, including computers, servers, mobile devices, and medical equipment, by deploying endpoint protection software. Ongoing monitoring and analysis of events, activities, and behaviors help in detecting and blocking suspicious activities.

It’s also important to conduct regular vulnerability assessments and apply software patches and updates to address known vulnerabilities in operating systems, applications, and medical devices.

Given that people are often the weakest link in cybersecurity, organizations must educate healthcare personnel about cyber threats, social engineering techniques, and safe computing practices. Regular training sessions can help employees recognize phishing emails, avoid malicious websites, and understand their role in maintaining cybersecurity.

It’s critical to develop a detailed incident response plan that outlines the steps to be taken in the event of a security incident. This includes procedures for detection, containment, eradication, and recovery, as well as communication protocols and coordination with relevant stakeholders.

By implementing these preventive measures, healthcare organizations can significantly reduce the likelihood of cyber threats, protect patient data, and maintain the integrity of critical healthcare systems.

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Use Cases

Identifying indicators of a malicious insider can be challenging, as their behavior may vary based on their motivations and the specific context of their actions. However, there are certain indicators that organizations can look out for to detect potential malicious insider activity. Here are some common indicators:

• Ransomware Protection
  Ransomware is a huge threat to healthcare organizations worldwide, with dozens of groups actively targeting the sector. Critical data is not only being encrypted by these groups but also stolen and posted for sale on the Dark Web. Leading cybersecurity solutions can detect ransomware in its earliest stages and prevent it from executing successfully.
• Threat Detection and Response
  Threat detection and response uses a combination of technology, skilled personnel, and well-defined procedures, aiming to minimize the dwell time of threats, reduce the potential impact of security incidents, and help organizations recover quickly and strengthen their security posture.
• Insider Threat Detection and Deterrence
  Insider threats are a potent risk for every healthcare provider. Who wouldn’t like a peek at a VIP’s medical records? Whether an employee, affiliate, or third-party provider is malicious or just careless, a data breach can be costly and can lead to brand damage and regulatory fines. Tools that use behavioral identifiers, machine learning models, and artificial intelligence can accurately detect and mitigate insider threats before damage is done.
• Healthcare Provider and Consumer Fraud
  Some cybersecurity solutions are geared toward analyzing data to look for instances of fraud, which is rampart in the healthcare industry.
• Privileged Access Abuse
  Privileged accounts are prone to social engineering (phishing), account takeovers, and other theft techniques that allow an attacker to misuse legitimate permissions in order to perform malicious actions. Watching for anomalous user behavior can help detect account takeovers and abuse.
• Regulatory Compliance
  Compliance with HIPAA and HITECH as well as cybersecurity standards and other regulations requires a broad range of tools and a coordinated approach that is facilitated by a unified security and risk analytics system.

Allina Health Gurucul Customer Story: Monitoring Medical Devices

Gurucul’s Comprehensive Solutions for Healthcare Cybersecurity

Gurucul understands the unique challenges health and human services organizations face in protecting sensitive patient data and maintaining HIPAA compliance cybersecurity. Our cloud-native Security Analytics and Operations Platform offers a full range of integrated capabilities designed to address healthcare cyber risks, including security, identity, and fraud. Here’s how our solutions tackle healthcare-specific challenges:

Gurucul Next-Gen SIEM: Comprehensive Threat Detection for Hospital Network Security

Gurucul’s Next-Gen SIEM is tailored to meet the complex needs of healthcare organizations, providing robust healthcare data protection and patient data security. It ingests and analyzes massive amounts of data from diverse sources, including:

• Network Infrastructure
• IT systems
• Cloud platforms
• Applications
• Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices
• Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems

By leveraging a library of advanced ML models and identity-centric data science, our Next-Gen SIEM offers:

• Real-time detection of anomalies in electronic health records protection access patterns
• Identification of potential healthcare data breaches before they escalate
• Automated threat mitigation to prevent damage to critical healthcare systems
• Contextual, risk-prioritized alerts that help security teams focus on the most critical threats

For example, if a malicious actor attempts to access patient records outside of normal working hours or from an unusual location, Gurucul’s Next-Gen SIEM will immediately flag this behavior and trigger appropriate security responses.

Gurucul UEBA: Behavioral Analytics for Insider Threat Detection

In healthcare, insider threats pose a significant risk to patient data security. Gurucul’s UEBA tools are specifically designed to detect and respond to unknown, new, and emerging threats in healthcare environments by:

• Continuously learning and adjusting to characterize suspicious and anomalous activity within health and human services systems
• Distinguishing between legitimate access to patient records and potential data exfiltration attempts
• Identifying unusual patterns in medical device usage that could indicate medical device security breaches

Our UEBA solution helps healthcare security teams quickly distinguish malicious activity from false positives, ensuring that legitimate healthcare operations are not disrupted while maintaining vigilant protection against insider threats.

Gurucul Open XDR: Unified Threat Detection and Response Across Healthcare Ecosystems

Healthcare organizations often struggle with siloed security products and data. Gurucul’s Open XDR addresses this challenge by:

• Integrating security data from various healthcare-specific systems, including EHR platforms, medical imaging systems, and IoMT devices
• Providing a holistic view of the entire healthcare computing environment
• Enabling rapid threat hunting and mitigation across multiple domains within the healthcare ecosystem

This unified approach is crucial for maintaining HIPAA compliance cybersecurity and protecting against sophisticated attacks that may target multiple areas of a healthcare organization’s infrastructure simultaneously.

Gurucul Identity & Access Analytics: Securing Healthcare Identities and Access

In healthcare, managing access to sensitive patient data is critical. Gurucul’s Identity & Access Analytics uses a risk-based approach to:

• Monitor and identify risks in access patterns to electronic health records protection
• Remove excess access, access outliers, and orphaned/dormant accounts in healthcare systems
• Prevent account takeovers and privilege abuse that could lead to healthcare data breaches

This identity analytics solution is particularly valuable for health and human services organizations that need to maintain strict control over who can access patient data while ensuring that healthcare professionals have the necessary access to provide timely care.

By implementing Gurucul’s comprehensive suite of cybersecurity solutions, healthcare organizations can:

1. Achieve and maintain HIPAA compliance cybersecurity standards
2. Protect sensitive patient data from both external threats and insider risks
3. Secure their hospital network security against evolving cyber threats
4. Ensure the integrity and availability of electronic health records protection
5. Safeguard medical device security in an increasingly connected healthcare environment

Gurucul’s platform provides a holistic view of a healthcare organization’s computing environment and the sensitive data within. By leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning, we enable healthcare providers to hunt for, detect, and mitigate threats before serious damage can occur, ensuring the continuity of critical healthcare services and the protection of patient trust.

Conclusion

The healthcare industry is a prime target for cyber attacks and other threats that pose risk to patient data. Healthcare organizations have a responsibility to safeguard private healthcare information and the systems that process it. A holistic cybersecurity program has many elements, including risk assessment, data encryption, threat detection and response, vulnerability management, and more.

Gurucul’s cloud-native Security Analytics Platform addresses a full range of cyber risks and helps healthcare organizations secure their protected health information (PHI).

Protect your organization with Gurucul’s advanced healthcare cybersecurity solutions – Request a Demo. We invite you learn more about IoT in healthcare and read our blog, “Revolutionizing Patient Care with Secure Healthcare IoT Solutions.”

For more detailed information on healthcare cybersecurity best practices and solutions, please contact us at info@gurucul.com.

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