Hospitals have 'holy grail of personal data, ' yet their spending lags on digital security

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-hospital-data-breaches-20190307-story.html

By Lisa Schencker
Chicago Tribune
March 8, 2019

When most people go to the hospital, data security is the last thing on their 
minds. They’re in pain, anxious and unsure. They want to be treated and return 
to their lives.

Yet sometimes patients still have cause to worry months after they leave the 
hospital. They’re discovering that data they gave to health systems -- Social 
Security numbers, birth dates, health insurance information, medical 
information and credit card numbers -- have been compromised in breaches.

In the past two years, 27 Illinois health care providers and companies have 
reported data breaches involving at least 500 patients. That includes a recent 
incident at Rush that may have exposed the information of 45,000 patients.

Yet health care providers, in general, tend to spend less on data security than 
companies in other industries. The shortfall is all the more glaring 
considering the sensitivity of the data, some experts say.

[...]

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