Interesting article on the Security Intelligence web site about the uptick in healthcare related hacks.
It’s highly valuable data. Health care’s crown jewel, protected health information (PHI), has an excellent resale value on the black market. The FBI has claimed that individual health care records can fetch $50 apiece on the underground versus $1 or less for credit cards. IBM X-Force researchers even see criminals giving away credit card data for free in forums.
Health data lasts forever. With credit cards, the banks reset the cards, which means there’s an expiration date on the data. But health records never expire and can be used for numerous malicious activities such as identity theft, insurance and health care fraud, fraudulent tax returns and more.
Health care is still adapting to the security landscape. 2015 was undoubtedly the year of the health care breach, with nearly 100 million records compromised. Health care organizations still need to focus on adopting security best practices in 2016 and locking down the many entry points into organizations. From medical tools to mobile devices, we’re likely to see changes made in the health care industry to safeguard this highly coveted data.