The following is a guest article by Oliver Patterson, Director of Product Management, VIPRE Security Group
In the digital era, email has become an indispensable communication tool for healthcare organizations. However, it also poses significant cybersecurity challenges, as sensitive patient information is vulnerable to breaches and phishing attacks. As the sector continues to evolve, we’ve got to continue exploring and understanding the importance of email security for health practices — and how advanced email security solutions can address these challenges effectively.
Understanding Email Cybersecurity Challenges in Health Practices
Health practices face unique cybersecurity challenges because of the sensitive nature of the patient information they collect and house. According to various studies, the healthcare industry experiences a high frequency of data breaches and cyberattacks.
According to the IBM “Cost of a data breach 2022” report, the cost of a breach in the healthcare industry went up 42% since 2020. For the 12th year in a row, healthcare had the highest average data breach cost of any industry. The average cost of a healthcare data breach in 2022 jumped $1 million to a record high of $10.1 million, which is 9.4% more than in 2021 and 41.6% more than in 2020.
Phishing, for example, is one of the most common cyber threats in the economy — 81% of organizations affected by phishing in 2022. Healthcare is no exception. Phishing attacks are one of the most common attacks in the sector. Phishing can range from mass email campaigns designed to trick employees into giving up passwords, to highly targeted campaigns designed to illicit fake invoice payments.
Likewise, a subset of phishing is business email compromise (BEC). Here, attackers try to breach email accounts to send out even more realistic phishing scams. Known as the “26-billion-dollar scam” by the FBI, BEC attacks can be highly effective in the healthcare environment. Healthcare organizations will spend $125 billion USD on cybersecurity from 2020 to 2025.
Email-related cybercrime, including phishing attacks and business email compromise, in the healthcare industry rose by 42% last year.
Features and Benefits of an Advanced Email Security Solution
To combat these challenges, advanced email security solutions offer a range of features designed to enhance protection and minimize risks. These solutions provide robust email filtering and attachment scanning capabilities, leveraging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and block malicious content effectively.
Advanced anti-phishing and URL protection features also help detect and prevent phishing attempts, safeguarding healthcare organizations from falling victim to fraudulent schemes. Data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities play a vital role in ensuring compliance by identifying and protecting sensitive patient data within emails. For example, users are notified to correct their actions before hitting the send button, reducing the time spent by IT and other departments who would otherwise need to investigate these preventable incidents. Likewise, data loss awareness tools help organizations reduce data leakage through misaddressed emails.
In this instance, healthcare’s email security challenges are enhanced through encryption and secure communication features, like adding add an extra layer of protection, preventing unauthorized access to confidential information. Additionally, user awareness and education initiatives raise the overall cybersecurity posture of health practices, so educating employees about email security best practices is an excellent starting point.
Mitigating Vulnerability and Enhancing Protection
An advanced email security solution significantly mitigates vulnerabilities in health practices. By effectively blocking malicious emails and attachments, it reduces the risk of malware infections and data breaches.
According to the “2021 Data Breach Investigations Report” by Verizon, 85% of all breaches involve human interaction, often through email phishing attacks. In healthcare, “basic human error continues to beset this industry as it has for the past several years. The most common error continues to be misdelivery (36 percent), whether electronic or paper documents.”
Advanced solutions equipped with real-time threat intelligence can identify and neutralize emerging threats promptly, ensuring healthcare organizations stay ahead of cybercriminals. These solutions also aid in enforcing compliance with regulatory standards such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), minimizing the risk of penalties and legal consequences for non-compliance.
Seamless Integration and User-Friendly Experience
Implementing an advanced email security solution offers seamless integration with existing email systems and platforms, facilitating a smooth transition without causing significant disruptions to daily operations. In addition, these solutions are specifically designed to streamline the deployment and configuration process, ensuring a hassle-free implementation experience for healthcare organizations.
One of the key advantages of advanced email security solutions is their user-friendly interfaces and simplified administration. As a result, Healthcare IT teams can easily navigate and manage email security solutions. In addition, the intuitive interface allows for efficient configuration, monitoring, and management of email security settings, ensuring optimal protection without placing an excessive burden on IT staff.
Automated updates and continuous threat intelligence are fundamental aspects of advanced email security solutions. These solutions regularly receive updates and patches that address emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and security enhancements. This proactive approach ensures the solution remains up-to-date with the latest security measures, protecting healthcare organizations against evolving and sophisticated email-based threats.
Continuous threat intelligence is another crucial aspect of advanced email security solutions. By leveraging threat intelligence feeds and real-time analysis, these solutions can identify and block new and emerging threats in a timely manner. This proactive defense approach allows healthcare organizations to stay ahead of cybercriminals, reducing the risk of successful email-based attacks.
Moreover, advanced email security solutions often provide centralized management consoles, allowing IT administrators to monitor and enforce security policies across the organization efficiently. This centralized approach ensures consistency and compliance with security protocols and regulations, simplifying managing email security on a larger scale.
In addition to seamless integration and user-friendly administration, these solutions often offer reporting and analytics capabilities. IT teams can access detailed reports and insights into email security events, enabling them to track and assess the effectiveness of the implemented security measures. This information can guide future security enhancements and strengthen the overall email security posture of the healthcare organization.
Overall, implementing an advanced email security solution offers seamless integration with existing systems and provides user-friendly interfaces, simplified administration, automated updates, continuous threat intelligence, and comprehensive reporting capabilities.
These features create a robust and efficient email security environment that safeguards sensitive patient data while minimizing disruption and maximizing protection against evolving email threats.
Conclusion
With the increasing cybersecurity threats faced by health practices, prioritizing email security is paramount. Advanced email security solutions provide a comprehensive approach to protecting sensitive patient data, mitigating vulnerabilities, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
By leveraging features such as robust filtering, anti-phishing measures, data loss prevention, encryption, and user education, healthcare organizations can enhance their email security posture and safeguard patient information effectively.
