Do you remember the classic board game where you have to go back and forth with your opponent deducing which characters on the board you’ve each selected? It’s still played by children today, and unfortunately by healthcare teams as well. Every day, healthcare teams are forced to play a game of “Guess Who?” is on-call if they do not have systems in place for role-based messaging.

Of growing concern to both patients and the professionals who facilitate their care is the growing trend of healthcare organizations being preyed upon by cybercriminals. In the United States, recent political dialogue has brought special attention to patients’ privacy rights under HIPAA and the ongoing security of their records.

The adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems has seen tremendous growth across geographies, especially in the US. According to American Hospital Association data shared by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, over 93% of American hospitals are enabled by some form of EHR in their organization. Implementing an EHR system in your clinic or hospital is a big decision.

Zero trust is a security model to help secure IT systems and environments. The core principle of this model is to never trust and always verify. It means never trusting devices by default, even those connected to a managed network or previously verified devices. Modern enterprise environments include networks consisting of numerous interconnected segments, services, and infrastructure, with connections to and from remote cloud environments, mobile devices, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) framework defines the entire process required to plan, design, build, release, maintain and update software applications, including the final stages of replacing and decommissioning an application when needed. A Secure SDLC (SSDC) builds on this process, integrating security at all stages of the lifecycle. When migrating to DevSecOps (collaboration between Development, Security, and Operations teams), teams typically implement an SSDLC.

Despite the best efforts of individuals to protect their own data, they cannot always account for the cybersecurity shortcomings of larger organizations such as their employers, financial institutions, and healthcare providers entrusted with their personal information. Hotels should also be added to this list of vulnerable entities, as was made painfully apparent in the most recent Marriott data breach.

If you have been following the financial news lately, you have surely become all too familiar with the challenging economic conditions that have emerged in 2022. As rising inflationary concerns put pressure on the bottom line, decision makers within businesses of all sizes are suddenly having to re-evaluate strategies, forecasts, and expenses. This pivot to a more conservative outlook is not unlike the approach adopted by businesses at the onset of COVID-19.

With cybersecurity boundaries going beyond the traditional walls of an office and attack surfaces constantly expanding, data breaches are inevitable. Managing risks from data breaches requires organizations to develop a comprehensive incident response plan – an established guideline that facilitates incident detection, response and containment, and empowers cybersecurity analysts to secure a company’s digital asset.

Hospitals that adopt electronic health records (EHR) to optimize clinical workflows face the decision of how to integrate EHR alerts into their workflows. The rationale is to surface actionable data from EHR systems and present healthcare providers with this information to supplement their day-to-day clinical decisions.

Is your IT team ready to respond to an increasing volume of data security incidents? According to the 2021 Annual Data Breach report from the Identity Theft Resource Center, 2021 saw a record number of data breaches, representing a 68% increase from the year prior. The most recent Cost of a Data Breach report from IBM shares the Ponemon Institute’s finding that the average data breach is a $4.24 million expense, up 9.8% from the previous year.