In the first five months of 2024 alone, healthcare data breaches affected 32 million U.S. patients. And as of 2023, healthcare reported the most expensive data breaches of any industry, at an average cost of $10.93 million.
Hackers often target healthcare organizations because they store sensitive information, which is valuable on the black market. But data breaches are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cyberattacks. Common threats facing organizations today include malware, denial-of-service attacks, phishing, and more.
We spoke with Tony Brown, AVP, Information Security for Healthesystems, about the cyber threats affecting the workers’ compensation industry and how to mitigate them.
Q: What are the biggest cyber threats to workers’ comp organizations?
A: The biggest threats to workers’ comp organizations are data breaches. With this threat, hackers target the personal data of injured workers and either hold it for ransom payments or conduct identity theft. Healthcare data breaches have increased over the years. In 2023, there were over 3,200 reported data breaches in the United States – of which more than 800 occurred in the healthcare industry alone. This number is made even more significant when you consider that the average cost of a healthcare data breach in 2023 was nearly $11 million.
