This week’s graphic highlights data from the Department of Health and Human Services on the increased number of cyberattacks hitting healthcare providers. Hacking and IT incidents, which include phishing, have increased in recent years to become the most common vector for healthcare data breaches. The scale of these hacks, in terms of numbers of records exposed, has also increased more than ten-fold increase since 2018. Given stringent regulations around healthcare data, responding to cyberattacks is complex and expensive for providers. The average healthcare data breach cost the affected party $11M in 2023, an amount about double that of a data breach in finance, the next closest industry. Accordingly, health systems are now bolstering their cybersecurity investments. A recent survey found that, on average, providers increased their IT budgets by more than 18 percent between 2019 and 2023. As malicious actors become more sophisticated in their efforts to extract healthcare data from providers and their business partners, continuing to bolster cybersecurity protections remains an essential priority for health systems in 2024.
