Cyberattacks range from large health systems to small hospitals and specialty clinics

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Dive Brief:

• Cyberattacks tend to target smaller healthcare companies and specialty clinics that lack the resources to defend themselves, and which — while personal and medical data are more expensive — generally have more sophisticated security than larger health systems, according to a new report from Critical Insight. .
• Cybercriminals hit the headlines this year with a breach of eye care leaders’ electronic medical records that exposed more than 2 million records. Other major attacks include those at revenue cycle management provider Practice Resources, publishing services vendor OneTouchPoint, and accounts receivable firm Professional Financial Co., which exposed approximately 940,000 individuals, 1.1 million individuals, and 1.9 million individuals, respectively.
• Total violations are declining from their peak in the second half of 2020. But the trend toward a focus on systems technology used by most vendors is one that cybersecurity firms expect to continue for the rest of the year. For HHS A report analyzing the reported breach data; he said.

Dive Insight:

Although it dropped from a peak of 393 in the second half of 2020 to 324 in the first half of 2022, the healthcare industry remains a prime target for cybercriminals.

About 20 million people were affected in the first half of this year – the third consecutive quarter of breach decline and a 28% decrease compared to the same period last year.

Healthcare providers, business partners (companies that handle data on behalf of providers and insurers), and health plans represent 73%, 15%, and 12% of total breaches, respectively. Interestingly, Critical Insights reports that breaches related to healthcare providers dropped from 269 in the first half of 2021 to 238 in the first half of 2022.

EHR-related breaches increased from zero in the first half of 2020 to 8 percent of all breaches in the first half of this year. Hacks related to network servers account for the majority of breaches at 57%, although this is down from a peak of 67% in the first half of 2021.

Smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics are increasingly affected by hacking or IT incident breaches. Breaches related to health plans decreased by 53%, but attacks against business partners jumped 10% and attacks against suppliers increased 15%.

That shift, “represents a major shift in approaches, victims and approaches from large hospital systems and payers to smaller entities with deficiencies in cyber defenses,” said John Delano, healthcare cybersecurity strategist at Critical Insight and vice president of Christ Health. , in their statement on the report. In the year As we move into 2022, we expect attackers to continue to focus on these small elements for ease of attack, but also to escape media attention and escalation with law enforcement.