If you’re keeping up with healthcare security news (and you should), you’re aware of ongoing healthcare cybersecurity threats, including to the dental profession. Attacks and threats are growing year over year.
Let’s cover the key points you need to understand—why cybersecurity is critical and what you can do to help protect your practice.
How serious are cybersecurity threats to healthcare and dental organizations?
Very serious. For most, it’s not a matter of if they will be targeted, it’s when.
90% of healthcare organizations have experienced at least one security breach. Last year (2023), nearly 35% of the U.S. adult population had their (medical or dental) records compromised via cyberattacks and data breaches. That’s nearly 120 million patients; 88 million of those patient’s records were compromised in the first ten months of the year.
Healthcare cybercrimes typically cost more than twice as much ($10.93 million) as the average breach ($4.5 million). 62% of (healthcare) organizations report they’re concerned about Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks and are vulnerable.
Cybersecurity breaches can have far-reaching consequences for the entire healthcare ecosystem by disrupting operations, leading to delays in patient care, and financial losses.
But is cybersecurity that important to my practice?
Because dental practices gather, transmit and store vast amounts of sensitive information—and with the digital transformation they’ve undergone the past decade—their wealth of data makes them valuable targets for cybercriminals seeking to exploit vulnerabilities.
Electronic health records (EHRs), financial data and other personally identifiable information (PII), especially private health information (PHI), are stored or sent when communicating with patients, eprescribing, and billing; making the need for a strong cybersecurity stance even more critical.
One of the most significant reasons cybersecurity is vital to your practice is for the protection of your patients’ privacy. Patients trust providers to safeguard their sensitive information, and any data breach can have severe consequences. A breach would not only compromise your patients’ privacy, but could also lead to identity theft, financial fraud, and even harm if sensitive medical information falls into the wrong hands.
Moreover, HIPAA holds that healthcare organizations have a legal and ethical responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of patient data. Dental organizations face regulatory penalties and legal liabilities for failing to protect patient data adequately, and would suffer damage to their reputation.
Why is maintaining cybersecurity challenging?
One of the biggest challenges to maintaining a strong cybersecurity posture is the way threats evolve and change. Cyber attackers are constantly seeking new vulnerabilities, which means dental practices and their software vendors need to be remarkably responsive and proactive in monitoring for vulnerabilities and threats.
Also, negligent or untrained staff clicking on phishing links in emails are the main way criminals gain access to sensitive data.
Here are a few alarming, related statistics:
- 90% of healthcare attacks begin through phishing (which can cost $14.8 million dollars, on average).
- 88% of healthcare workers open phishing emails.
- 61% of healthcare data breaches are reportedly caused by negligent employees.
What can you do to minimize risk at your practice?
In response to these evolving threats, you must prioritize cybersecurity measures to safeguard patient data and preserve the integrity of your operations.
You’ll need to assess your security posture, so you can determine what you need to address and prioritize. Begin with a HIPAA risk assessment, which can help point out regulatory and security vulnerabilities, and help you determine what actions need to be taken to resolve them.
Essential actions include:
- Implementing robust encryption protocols
- Regularly updating software systems to patch vulnerabilities
- And providing comprehensive training programs to educate staff about cybersecurity best practices. It’s critical to have capable, sufficiently-trained teams to handle patient care, customer service, billing and more.
Unfortunately, 56% of healthcare organizations report spending only 10% of their IT budgets on security. Nearly the same number suggest they don’t have the right IT talent, with 46% reporting finding IT talent a significant problem.
Nearly a third of healthcare employees did not know if their organization had a cybersecurity policy, and 37% of healthcare IT teams reported they had not—or did not—back up critical and sensitive data.
Implementing critical measures take time and resources; but it’s something you cannot afford to neglect.