Healthcare Files Remain A Profitable Target For Hackers

With personal patient data being passed between contractors, service providers and satellite offices, cybersecurity experts expect healthcare to remain a target for data thieves.

In the first six months of 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 146 data breaches affecting 500 or more people, about the same as reported in the first half of 2015.

“If someone steals your medical records, there’s no one you can call,” Caleb Barlow, a vice president for IBM Security told the Boston Globe. “Are you going to call 911 and say, ‘Hey, somebody stole my medical records?’ That’s going to be an interesting conversation.”

The big reason healthcare data has become a target for hackers is money.

Strong fraud-detection systems in the banking industry shorten the black market lifespan of stolen bank card numbers. In some cases, IBM security researchers said thieves are giving away credit card numbers to gain credibility.

So medical records have become more valuable. A partial electronic health record can fetch $50 on the black market, according to the FBI.

With millions of individual healthcare records compromised over the past two years, healthcare companies still have work to do to build up its data defenses.