Human risk is prevalent in the healthcare industry, especially in the wake of the pandemic. In fact, 85% of security incidents are the result of errant human behavior. According to Forcepoint, the healthcare industry has recently experienced a 55% increase in cybersecurity threats. In the past year alone, the healthcare industry experienced 849 incidents and 571 data breaches according to Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report. Of these incidents, 76% included basic web application attacks, miscellaneous user errors, and system intrusion leading to costs totaling $13.2 billion.
Mitigation of user risk is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s now imperative to implement user risk solutions that strengthen the safety and security of your organization, its people, and its clients. Continue reading to dive into the reasons why compliance leaders in healthcare need to prioritize proactive prevention with solutions that identify and mitigate breaches brought on by human risk.
1. Data Breaches Are on the Rise Due to Policy Violations
While the pandemic itself is subsiding, the repercussions of the global cultural and societal changes are still being felt throughout all industries and enterprises. From adapting to remote work and adjusting to hybrid workforces, cybersecurity is a major concern for compliance leaders everywhere. Remote work has increased user risk, leading to non-compliance and rising policy violations. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 71% of healthcare organizations report policy violations led to PHI and PII data being negatively impacted in the last 12 months.
Many workforce users don’t know about or understand the potential threats that could be lurking beyond the links they click on or actions they take. Unfortunately, cybercriminals do, and they’re targeting high-risk users to carry out data breaches. In particular, the healthcare industry is becoming a primary target for data breaches and other cyberattacks. In March 2022 alone, there were 30 healthcare data breaches, with 1.4 million victims reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Forrester found that almost one-quarter of data breaches in 2021 involved unintentional insider behavior. By implementing solutions to pinpoint user risk, security and compliance leaders can get ahead of major issues and reduce the number of policy violations that can lead to damaging security breaches.
2. User Risk Can Lead to Compliance Issues
As mentioned briefly above, human risk often leads to issues with compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR. This non-compliance can result in costly fines and judgments, litigation, and repercussion costs.
According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2022 Cost of Insider Threats: Global Report, the annual cost of human risk is $15.38 million, an increase of 44% since 2020.
Here’s where user risk solutions can help. The right technology can alert the security team to high-risk individuals before they inadvertently trigger an incident. Take a look at our case study, Reducing Insider Risk and Incidents in Big Pharma, to discover how a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company utilized the Elevate Security Platform to identify and mitigate human risk and increase compliance across the organization.
3. Security Training is Not Sufficient Enough to Prevent Cyberattacks Caused by User Risk
It’s the responsibility of compliance and risk management leaders to train employees and users on security protocols through security awareness and training. However, security training is often ineffective in changing user behavior. According to HHS, 27% of employees at healthcare organizations see security policies less than once a year and 39% receive security awareness training less than once a year. Even in organizations that prioritize security training, the training itself only gets them so far.
For employees and users whose behavior does not improve with security training, the right user risk solution will empower compliance leaders to:
- Uncover individual risk levels with a User Risk Profile
- Proactively reduce user risk with intelligent and targeted security controls based on User Risk Scores
- Deliver automated notifications warning the riskiest, targeted users to be on the lookout for phishing, malware attacks, or other security challenges.
User Risk Solutions: Choosing the Right Technology
With the right technology, compliance leaders will gain a better understanding of which employees and/or departments have the greatest user risk and pose the greatest unintentional insider threat. The Elevate Security Platform makes it easy to analyze and defend your organization against user risk by enabling you to:
- Instantly identify your riskiest employees
- Identify and benchmark the riskiest groups and their behaviors
- Verify technology investments and interventions are working
- Optimize access & authorization
- Adjust access levels and policy-exceptions
Our solution empowers leaders to take a predictive approach to security, providing visibility to risky user behaviors, mitigating risk in advance of security events and incidents, driving behavior and policy change to reduce security events. And fewer user-driven security events mean less pressure on SOC analysts and ultimately, fewer breaches.
Not only does mitigating human risk reduce cybersecurity threats, it also ensures that organizations and individuals are remaining compliant with national and global regulations, preventing compliance issues, fees, and legal action.
Final Thoughts
With the rising number of data breaches and exponentially growing user risk, traditional methods of reducing the risk of cyberattacks are no longer enough. It’s time for compliance leaders in healthcare to implement modern user risk solutions. Elevate Security can help you proactively address human risk and predict where your next incident will start.
Dive into the capabilities of a powerful user risk solution — explore the Elevate Security Platform.
