5 Ways Health Care Can Achieve Stronger Data Security
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Exercise Caution When Accessing Foreign Networks
In a Cisco report on BYOD, 59 percent of respondents who used smartphones to access PHI said the smartphones were not password protected, 53 percent of respondents accessed unsecured or foreign Wi-Fi networks, and 48 percent of respondents could not confirm if they disabled "discovery mode" on their Bluetooth devices and smartphones, which makes these devices extremely vulnerable to a cyber attack. Many health care roundtable participants also reported that it was not uncommon for doctors to email PHI to personal email addresses (a known HIPAA violation) which opens yet another opportunity for access to unencrypted PHI.
IT departments at health care organizations should enforce strict requirements with respect to health care providers accessing PHI via mobile devices.
The world of health care has been drastically transformed through the development of electronic systems used to transmit data between physicians, diagnostic clinicians, lab techs and other practitioners. Although they have advanced patient care, these systems also make securing of protected health information (PHI) far more complicated than the old "lock and key" approach.
Although more than a year has passed since the cyber attack on health insurance giant Anthem, many industry experts are still asking questions: What went wrong? Who is at fault? Were there preventative measures that could've been taken? And while these questions have yet to be answered, immediate action must be taken to achieve better security. In this slideshow, Mark Hickman, COO at WinMagic, discusses the top five ways health care organizations can protect themselves from a data breach.
Related Topics : Unisys, Stimulus Package, Security Breaches, Symantec, Electronic Surveillance
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