When medical records’ black market value is estimated at an average of $50 per record–94 percent of health care organizations have had at least one breach in the past two years–and 2 million Americans were medical identity theft victims in 2011–it’s one unpleasant ‘pointer to the future.’

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/IDExperts_Infographic_v4_72-crop1.png” thumb_width=”150″ /]Data firm ID Experts studied a decade of data breaches and notes that medical data has become very attractive to professional hackers and cyber thieves. ID Experts’ full infographic.

• First, there is so much of it with the increasing electronification of health data.
• Second, so much of it resides on insecure or unsecured networks: smartphone, tablet, laptop.
• Third, organizations and individuals still are only semi-conscious of fraud reality, and are negligent and sloppy when it comes to securing devices and over-reliance on the cloud without tight enterprise security. The new and underfunded health insurance ‘exchanges’ are particularly vulnerable as they, as well as other healthcare organizations, can over-rely on technology to protect data–which clever hackers can work around. Moreover, they can extract and sit on data till the trail goes cold. (Scroll down infographic to find out more). Also Ponemon Institute’s recent report in Healthcare Technology Online.

ID Experts’ study conclusions are reinforced by the California State Attorney General’s report that 55 percent of breaches “were intentional intrusions by outsiders or by unauthorized insiders” and that healthcare breaches were the third largest in reported incidents. A counter-measure may be the Medical ID Fraud Alliance, a collaboration in progress that is planned to include the Federal Trade Commission, the Secret Service and the Veterans Administration. More in Amednews.com (published by the American Medical Association)

Healthcare breaches due to criminal activity and plain error are becoming more common as well. All one has to do is bop over to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, click on ‘MED’ for healthcare and 2013 and check the frequency to date (113) of breaches both tiny and huge. (By comparison, full year 2012 totaled 224.) Our TTA ‘Into The Breach’ Awards go to:   (more…)