Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the protection of computerized or internet-connected systems including software and hardware and data. The security provided to prevent cyberattacks. Healthcare facilities are required to provide cybersecurity to prevent breach of data or unauthorized access of their Electronic Health Records (Perakslis & Stanley, 2016). Patients require the assurance that their medical profile is not accessed by unauthorized people. Statistics indicate that 4.5 billion data records were compromised in 2018. In healthcare sector, common breaches of data occur on laptops, Electronic Health Records, computer systems, desktops, emails and servers. The cyberattacks also occur when malicious people access the computers or other systems that bear the information (Zhang, Qiu, Tsai, Hassan & Alamri, 2015). The condition can be solved in various ways including installing updated spyware, antivirus systems on all computers. It is also important to keep back up of all files in case of a data breach. This paper discusses the cybersecurity menace and the impact on healthcare settings.
Impact on Organizations
Health organizations collect vast amount of information on personal health record and contacts. Therefore, they remain a key target to the cybercrime. The crisis affects health organizations since it lowers the trust of the patients (Jalali, Razak, Gordon, Perakslis & Madnick, 2019). Various health organizations have recorded poor performance after they were hacked. The reason is that patients expect that their personal information will not be disclosed. Additionally, a hospital can attract lawsuits from patients who data has been leaked. The lawsuit will damage the reputation of the organization and lead to loss of funds in court cases. Healthcare organizations can also be attacked leading to loss of moral authority in the sector. Therefore, it will not attract the best talents in the market. Healthcare cyberattack can thus lead to multiple problems that will affect an organization negatively (Kruse, Frederick, Jacobson & Monticone, 2017). It is thus important to ensure the systems are secured from all attacks. If the data is lost and people do not trust the organization, the organization may end up making losses. It might also take time before restoring the trust.
The healthcare facility that have online portals can record reduced levels of patients who book an appointment online. The reason is due to the fear that the information may be hacked and used by hackers to access personal information such as bank accounts (Coventry & Branley, 2018). When systems are hacked, it means the healthcare professionals cannot easily share their notes or prescription information. It will thus disrupt operations since the personal information of the patient is unavailable. Statistics indicate that in the last five years, hacking has affected over 80 million people. In 2015 cybercrime led to loss of 78.8 million health records (Coventry & Branley, 2018). The breach compromised the data and led to loss of critical information including names, dates of birth, home address, social security numbers and emails. Local organizations are also prone to such a loss if they do not take the necessary precaution.
Article Summary
Jalali, Razak, Gordon, Perakslis and Madnick (2019), carried out a study on the intersection between healthcare delivery and cybersecurity. The article was developed due to the rise of dependency on information technology by healthcare providers. The objective is to make the healthcare computerized systems safe, reliable and effective in delivering healthcare services. The task involves a search for articles on PubMed and Web of Science. The study found 472 articles dealing with cybersecurity. The article concluded that there is an overall increase in cybersecurity research. It also identified various gaps that should be fixed by future research studies.
Kruse, Frederick, Jacobson and Monticone (2017) published an article on healthcare cybersecurity issues including the threats and trends. The article indicated that ransomware was a possible kind of attack and recommended various solutions from academic literature. The study focused on 31 articles and indicated that healthcare sector was lagging behind in implementing reliable and safe computerized systems. The article recommends that it is time for the healthcare sector to invest in reliable and safe systems. The recommended solutions it to invest in software to prevent cyberattacks, train personnel on how to prevent it and use prevention strategies.
Cybersecurity in Other Organizations
Healthcare organizations have realized that they are under the cybercrime threat. They have taken various measures to prevent or address the cyberattacks. One of the measures is to identify the various forms of threats. Once the threats are identified, the company seals all the loopholes to avoid possible attacks (Coventry & Branley, 2018). Additionally, they update their spyware prevention systems. The reason for updating is to ensure the enemies will always find it hard to penetrate the security walls. The healthcare organizations have also trained their employees on the best ways to prevent the attacks. One of them is to ensure the computer network connection is always protected before browsing. The companies have also ensured they restrict physical access to the authorized employees (Zhang, Qiu, Tsai, Hassan & Alamri, 2015). The safety issues are thus addressed since they minimize the people who can access the passwords or try to hack into the systems. Companies have adopted two-step authentication process to prevent people from interfering with the system. The various methods are used to ensure the systems are safe.
Organizations have made attempts to reduce the impact through various strategies. One of the strategies is implementing a strong sign-off policy. The employees have been encouraged to sign-off from their computers before going out or going home (Zhang, Qiu, Tsai, Hassan & Alamri, 2015). The sign-off ensures that people who had passwords or little information cannot access the sites. Additionally, they have protected their passwords by not indexing them online. The passwords are designed in a complex manner to prevent any hacking. Organizations have also reduced the impact by making copies of crucial information and putting it as a backup. Therefore, in case of any hacking, they are in a position to restore the websites or the systems immediately (Kruse, Frederick, Jacobson & Monticone, 2017). The instant restoration will prevent inefficiency or shock on the customers. Therefore, organizations are employing various strategies to ensure the organizations remain safe and they also have strategies to overcome hacking in case it occurs.
Impact on the Organization
The strategies used by different companies are effective and thus they can have a positive impact on our organization. The reason is that the strategies have proved to be effective and thus they can be adopted by any company with a vision of protecting its systems (Kruse, Frederick, Jacobson & Monticone, 2017). Besides the positive impact, the installation of the security systems may affect the company negatively since it will cost hundreds of dollars. The huge investment will affect the annual budget. Additionally, the healthcare facility will be required to employ more personnel who can be on guard to secure the systems and monitor their effectiveness (Coventry & Branley, 2018). However, the benefits in the end are more than the negative impact.
References
Coventry, L., & Branley, D. (2018). Cybersecurity in healthcare: A narrative review of trends, threats and ways forward. Maturitas, 113, 48-52.
Jalali, M. S., Razak, S., Gordon, W., Perakslis, E., & Madnick, S. (2019). Health Care and Cybersecurity: Bibliometric Analysis of the Literature. Journal of medical Internet research, 21(2), e12644.
Kruse, C. S., Frederick, B., Jacobson, T., & Monticone, D. K. (2017). Cybersecurity in healthcare: A systematic review of modern threats and trends. Technology and Health Care, 25(1), 1-10.
Perakslis, E. D., & Stanley, M. (2016). A cybersecurity primer for translational research. Science translational medicine, 8(322), 322ps2-322ps2.
Zhang, Y., Qiu, M., Tsai, C. W., Hassan, M. M., & Alamri, A. (2015). Health-CPS: Healthcare cyber-physical system assisted by cloud and big data. IEEE Systems Journal, 11(1), 88-95.
