Healthcare Remains a Top Target for Cybersecurity Attacks – How to Ensure Your Cloud is Secure

Many organizations have successfully built and grown their HIPAA-compliant applications, websites, and hosted solutions on robust hosting platforms. Clients are seeing improved, streamlined operations with better data-driven insights and, above all else, better patient service. Unfortunately, despite all this progress, healthcare organizations face increased risk caused by advanced cybersecurity threats.

Healthcare faces a unique set of cybersecurity challenges stemming from both the sensitive nature of patient data and the perception of underlying weaknesses and vulnerabilities. These factors contribute to the industry’s ongoing appeal to cybercriminals, who may view healthcare organizations as softer targets with potentially greater rewards than those in other sectors.

By partnering with HIPAA-compliant cloud providers, healthcare professionals demonstrate a strategic understanding of the cyber threats they face. They recognize that managed services are an invaluable tool for protecting their IT infrastructure and maintaining a strong security posture.

A Real Problem

While ransomware attacks have declined in many sectors, healthcare remains a glaring exception. Many ask why healthcare practices are targeted; here are some of the key pain points we are seeing in the industry:

• Valuable Data: Healthcare records contain a wealth of sensitive personal and financial information that fetches a high price on the dark web.
• Critical Systems: Disruptions to healthcare operations can have life-or-death consequences, which may increase the pressure to pay ransoms, especially when considering the significant cybersecurity insurance policies often held.
• Legacy Infrastructure: Many healthcare organizations still rely on outdated systems that are more vulnerable to attacks.

The burden of legacy infrastructure, coupled with the ongoing threats of ransomware, phishing, and social engineering, can overwhelm in-house IT teams. Outsourcing these critical functions not only alleviates this burden but also provides healthcare providers with a pathway to a more secure and resilient IT environment.

Responding and Recovering from Healthcare Breaches

If your business does not take the appropriate protective measures, a data breach can occur. Hackers can infiltrate in numerous ways. Social engineering and phishing are highly successful, but attackers can also target weak infrastructure, looking for technical vulnerabilities, weak security, or weak default configurations.

Protecting patient data and ensuring the continuity of care requires your business to face these concerns head-on. Some successful strategies you will need may include:

• A Comprehensive Risk Assessment: A thorough understanding of your organization’s vulnerabilities is the foundation of any security strategy. It might be painful to read, but it is important to acknowledge. Regularly assess your cloud environment, identify potential entry points, and prioritize remediation efforts. This should include penetration testing and vulnerability scanning.
  
• Robust Security Controls: HIPAA demands that you implement strong access controls and encryption, audited with tools like an intrusion detection system (IDS) or a security information and event management (SIEM) system. Regularly updating and patching your software to address known vulnerabilities is one of the most effective ways to reduce risk. Consider implementing a Zero Trust architecture.
  
• Employee Training: Your staff is your first line of defense. Comprehensive security awareness training is essential to help them identify phishing attempts, avoid social engineering attacks, and follow best practices for data handling. Make training engaging and ensure it follows a continuous learning path, incorporating realistic simulations.
  
• Incident Response Plan: Remember that things can go wrong. Have a well-documented disaster recovery and business continuity plan for responding to a data breach. The plan should include steps for containing the damage, notifying affected individuals (as per HIPAA breach notification rules), and restoring business operations. Regular drills and tabletop exercises are crucial for refining this plan.
  
• Partner with a Trusted Cloud Provider: Choose a cloud provider with a proven track record in healthcare security. Ensure they offer HIPAA-compliant services, regular security audits, and robust disaster recovery capabilities. Check their certifications and achievements, and look for HIPAA, HITECH, SOC 2 Type 2, and potentially ISO 27001 standards. Verify their Business Associate Agreement (BAA) aligns with your organizational needs.

Upcoming Trends and HIPAA Considerations

Looking ahead, several trends will shape the future of healthcare cloud security:

• Increased Scrutiny of Cloud Providers: HIPAA enforcement is likely to intensify, with a greater focus on the security practices of cloud vendors and shared responsibility models. Organizations will need to understand their obligations and those of their providers.
• Evolving Threat Attack Surface: As cybercriminals develop more sophisticated tactics, healthcare organizations will need to stay ahead of the curve by adopting advanced security measures like AI-powered threat detection, behavioral analytics, and threat intelligence platforms. The rise of interconnected medical devices (IoMT) also expands the attack surface, requiring specific security considerations.
• Shift to Zero Trust Security: This model, which assumes that no user or device can be trusted by default, is already becoming the new normal, and it is increasingly important in protecting healthcare data. Implementing micro-segmentation and strict identity and access management (IAM) are key components.
• Emphasis on Data Sovereignty and Privacy Regulations: Beyond HIPAA, global privacy regulations (like GDPR) and emerging state-specific laws are influencing how healthcare data is stored, processed, and secured, requiring careful consideration of data residency and cross-border data flows.

Securing Your Healthcare Cloud Environment

Securing a healthcare cloud environment requires a multi-layered approach to protection. A fully managed firewall solution provides a strong level of protection against unauthorized access, while a comprehensive business associate agreement solidifies a commitment to data security and compliance.

When transitioning to a new environment, look for providers who streamline the migration process, offering dedicated migration support to minimize downtime and disruptions. Prioritize business continuity with a robust data protection strategy that includes both onsite and offsite daily backups, along with granular recovery options.

Effective server management ensures that your systems maintain optimal performance and security. Regular vulnerability scans proactively identify and address potential weaknesses. An advanced intrusion prevention service that actively monitors and blocks suspicious activity adds an extra layer of protection. Multi-factor authentication further strengthens access controls, requiring multiple forms of verification for enhanced security.

Implementing comprehensive security suites that offer cutting-edge antivirus and anti-malware protection is crucial. Network edge protection secures the perimeter of your network, while load balancing optimizes performance and ensures high availability for critical applications.

By entrusting your HIPAA-compliant managed services to a dedicated provider, healthcare organizations can focus on delivering quality care, confident that their sensitive data is secure and compliant.