Last year, there were 798 confirmed incidences of internal and external healthcare breaches according to the Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigation Report. We read about these incidents virtually daily, and yet, instead of breach numbers reducing, the numbers continue to rise. Of those incidents, 48 percent were caused by insiders.

We recently caught up with a few iatricSystems customers, and they revealed that they discovered that some of their employees were inappropriately viewing patients’ COVID-19 test results. They credit their ability to figuring this out to their Patient Privacy solution, which alerted them of the inappropriate access to patient information.

You’ve heard the recent – and sometimes overly-used – buzzword “the new normal” when referring to how organizations are conducting work during COVID-19. Yet still, as businesses re-open, many predict there won’t be a full-shift back from working remotely, and that what is going on today will continue to be the “new normal” for a lot of us.

As an organization in the healthcare industry, you already know you’re at a higher target for threats because of the information you store and transmit. Most hospitals do their due diligence to set up security standards to protect patient information from outside threats, but then often underestimate the exponential risk of threats that can happen within the organization.

As states begin to lift some of the COVID-19 restrictions and businesses begin to reopen, healthcare organizations are still facing many of the same challenges presented at the beginning of this pandemic.

With most of us now working from home, and kids doing school from home, our worlds look a lot different than they did a couple of months ago. We were all thrown into the scenario of remote working and learning, and while a lot of us work in secure IT environments at our on-site work location, there are some good reminders and actions you can and should take to protect your family online at home too.

You’re only as strong as your weakest… passwords? Security experts revealed that as cybercriminals continue to develop better tools for cracking passwords, the strength of your password doesn’t really matter.

As you may be aware, October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the emphasis focuses on the mantras of Own IT, Secure IT, Protect IT. In previous weeks, we've focused on "Own IT" as it relates for Remote Access Security, "Secure IT" as it relates to multi-factor authentication, and "Protect It" as it relates to HIPAA violations. This week, I want to focus again on "Protect It" and how it relates to protecting data from scammers or hackers.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the emphasis focuses on the mantras of Own IT, Secure IT, Protect IT. In last week's blog, I focused on "Own IT" as it relates for Remote Access Security. This week I will focus on "Secure IT". A key to securing it (and in this case, "it" refers to Protected Health Information) is realizing that there are tools for healthcare IT available to help us live and work in a mobile society.