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Patients’ medical records still in the spotlight when it comes to data breaches

Healthcare data breaches continue to rise

Whilst an overwhelming amount of data breaches occur due to human error – like sending an email to the wrong recipient, or failing to hide multiple recipients’ identities from each other – ransomware of healthcare records are on a rapid climb.

In a report conducted by the Breach Industry Forecast, patient data is one of the most valuable types of information to cyber criminals. Hospitals and other healthcare organisations usually keep masses of patient data in digital databases, and these are far from secure it seems.
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The WannaCry hacking’s “accidental hero”

The hack against NHS systems and other organisations across the globe last Friday (12^th May 2017) panicked many across the world, and seriously hampered our NHS’ ability to provide lifesaving care.

It has since emerged that one cyber-security expert managed to kill of the ransomware that was hacking into systems across the globe, and it was practically achieved by accident…
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1 in 8 people in England suffer healthcare data breaches

According to recent figures, 1 in 8 people have suffered a healthcare data breach.

This is very worrying as healthcare data can be very private and sensitive information, and it can also be a goldmine for cyber-criminals.

Off the back of Friday’s monumental ransomware attack that hit almost one hundred countries around the world, and brought the NHS to an almost standstill, this is very worrying news.
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Justice is served: Two men plead guilty for TalkTalk cyber attack

On the 22^nd October 2015, telecommunications company TalkTalk suffered a huge cyber-attack. The result was some 157,000 of their customers’ personal details being breached, and this included 16,000 bank details being accessed.

The case has been somewhat concluded now as two men have pleaded guilty to the attack. At the Old Bailey courthouse, Matthew Hanley and Douglas Allsopp pleaded guilty to several offences.
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“Pagers are a huge cause of leaking data” – Out-of-date devices are causing the industrial industry to compromise its security

The ‘Leaking Beeps’ report shines a light on how employees from industrial environments are leaking data through their pagers.

For those industries still using pager technology to communicate with their employees, this may be very bad news to them. The report details how unsecure pagers are, and in this day and age, any cyber security flaw is always a real concern.
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UK charities fined for misusing donors’ private information

11 UK charities have been fined for breaching data protection laws.

11 of the UK’s top charities have been fined for misusing their donors’ (aka individuals who donate) personal information. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) have issued fines to the charities for alleged misconduct and breaching the Data Protection act.
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Three’s latest data breach

Three’s recent data breaches have caused a rippling effect for many customers.

The newest of the breaches caused some customers to be without texting and telephone functions on 22^nd April 2017, and also led to some texts going to totally random people rather than the intended recipients.

We have already taken cases on where personal text messages ended up in the inbox of someone totally random, and social media was filled with complaining customers asking for explanations.
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March 2017 saw a 1.5 million spike in lost or stolen medical records

Protenus, a company who protect patient privacy in the U.S., compiles a monthly report on data breaches called the Protenus Breach Barometer (PBR) using data provided by DataBreaches.net. It analyses all breaches reported to the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) in the U.S or to the media in 2017.

Looking at breaches that compromised healthcare records for the past few months in 2017, January and February seemed relatively quiet with 388,000 and 200,000 patient records respectively. However, when compared to the massive spike of 1,519,521 compromised patient records in March, it makes the previous figures look insignificant.
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Police officers have “unprecedented access” to millions of records

The Police Federation’s head of misconduct has revealed that a large number of the police force are “persistently” committing data breaches.

Fears have arisen that the police force are using technologies like the Police National Computer (PNC) and the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) “for non-work related reasons”, according to the Police Federation.

And it’s happening all the time.
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Data breaches don’t come cheap… £120 million to be exact…

Numerous security experts have noted that data breaches at the Financial Times Stock Exchange’s (FTSE) 100 firms have cost approximately £120 million in market value.

£120 million isn’t really loose change that organisations and firms should disregard; it should be a wake-up call!

According to the Breach Level Index, almost 1.4 billion data records were lost or stolen in 2016. The statistics showed an 86% increase from the previous year. The Breach Level Index notes that:

“…more and more organisations are accepting the fact that, despite their best efforts, security breaches are unavoidable.”

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