HHS Issues Cybersecurity Guidance For Healthcare Organizations

BakerHostetler will post a series of blogs to fully explore the recommendations and guidance Health and Human Services provides healthcare organizations in its report.

Cyberattacks continue to rise across industries, and healthcare is no different. Eighty percent of U.S. physicians reported having experienced some form of cyberattack. In 2017, cyberattacks cost small and midsize businesses an average of $2.2 million, with 60 percent of small businesses going out of business within six months of the attack. According to a study from IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, the cost of a data breach for healthcare organizations rose from $380 per record in 2017 to $408 per record in 2018, the highest cost for data breaches across all industries. In 2016, U.S. healthcare systems lost $6.2 billion due to data breaches. No doubt this amount continued to rise in 2017 and 2018, with the growing number of cyberattacks.