Understanding Email Threats

Hospital and health facility administrators face hardened criminals who hack medical records with ever-increasing sophistication. Hackers gain access to critical information, such as medical claims, financial data, Social Security numbers and credit card data that enable identity theft, credit card fraud and other privacy breaches. One of the major security failures in the news was the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield attack that exposed 1.1 million of its members to thefts of their personal information.[1] Combined with high-profile breaches at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross, the breach illustrates the changing role of medical administrators

As Health information system continues to evolve and innovate the healthcare industries, one should be conscious of information security and safety. Kaiser Permanente experiences this dilemma first hand. On August 2000, Kaiser Permanente had a serious security breach that sends out email messages to their patients with another patient’s information. This integrated health delivery system serves over eight million members with appointments, prescription refills, health information, clinical advice and patient forums was breath and nineteen of the member received email messages with private information.

The potential vulnerabilities within a Health Delivery Organizations (HDOs) are numerous. The impact of exploitation of the can be enormous. It’s not only that the information will be damaged, stolen, or misused; the actual or implied theft of improperly protected electronic data can result in extortion threats. The cost and distraction of a hacker’s extortion demand that threatens to shut down an entity’s system or to expose confidential information can be significant. In addition to the direct costs related to the extortion demand, a facility can have major expenses, including those for the required notification of patients related to the real or threatened release of their identity information. Many states require companies to notify all of their customers if a breach is even suspected. The potential for exploitation does not stop there. Consider any of the following scenarios, note that some do not even require access to personal information, a hacker just needs to get access:

The cases of hospital cyber attacks have been on the increase in the recent years. For example, there was a rise in the total cases of data breaches in the United States of America in 2014. According to a report that was presented by the ITRC (Identity Theft Resource Center), data breaches in U.S hospitals in 2014 increased by 27.5% when compared to the previous years. In 2015, data breaches in hospital have reached 5,029 that include an estimation of 675 million records (Fensholt & Holloway, 2013). In 2014, the healthcare industry recorded the highest cases of data breaches, followed by the business sector.

Thousands of sick and injured people depend on hospitals to take care of them while they recover, including protecting their confidential information in the hospital databases. Hundreds of hackers rely on these databases to steal those patients’ identities. The company Security Operations assists in making sure it is nearly impossible to access the files, and everyone follows regulatory requirements. Emily Jones, a director of the company Security Operations, manages a team to make the process go smoothly. Every day for the past two years, Emily would sit in conference calls with her team and review the daily analysis of data and policies for the hospital risks. In this I.T. (Information technology) field, herself and team protect cyber

Email propagation of malicious code is the most frequently used technique by cyber-attackers
. Executives state that the majority of cyber threats originate from China
 and that organizations are conducting periodic review of systems and administrative logs, and adopted computer security policies, to counter cyber-attacks over the next two years. This article supports my third trend on predictions of the future in how information is exchanged.

Specifically in 2015 Excellus BlueCross BlueShield experienced one of the third largest hacks within that year. Patient information was comprised for over 10 million members. This breach originally occurred in 2013 and lasted two years. The cause of breaches similar to BlueCross BlueShield is lost and stolen assets, privilege misuse, and miscellaneous errors. Yet even with the possibility of current breaches occurring, the healthcare industry is still consistently changing the tools in order to provide better patient care. One of the most popular changes has been electronic healthcare records which maintains patient information. These electronic records are mainly used for insurance purpose as well as providing easy accessible information for healthcare providers. These records allow patients to stay up to date and become more involved in their healthcare. However, electronic files raise several concerns regarding the privacy and security of the patient’s health information. This may lead patients to become worrisome regarding loss, theft and hacking of their personal healthcare information and financial

Internet security are such a big thing because many things are based off the internet. As in most of the storage is done off of cloud storage, so you don’t need lots of storage in your computer. Which makes internets unsafe because anyone could hack into your account and take your information. Like your bank account and your personal accounts that could really hurt you I the long run. Or someone could put a scam on a common website that most people go on. And could hack everyone’s computer that has the scams. Another way of spamming is by hacking into someone else email and sending them spam that looks like legitimate with a subject or message. Fooled sender email addresses, logos, trademarks, and the wording used in the message will often add to the trick.

Phishing attacks are the most common attacks which help the attacker to gain valuable information about the victim. The attacker use some advanced techniques which help them to bypass the Internet service provider email defense systems as well as anti-phishing techniques implemented by email providers. In today’s world, most of the cyber criminals are using spear-phishing attack so that they can install malware on the victim’s machine which can help the attacker to gain long-term access to the victim’s computer and information. Spear Phishing emails can have the attachments in many file formats such as .pdf, .docx, .doc. The file type such as .com or .exe is called executable files which help the attacker to gain access to the victim’s system

Every day, hospitals in the United States and around the world are working long hours in responding to emergencies, attending patients, delivering newborn babies, performing surgeries, and foremost – saving lives. Not too long ago, cyberspace has given institutions such as hospitals the tools to accumulate and file as much information and data as possible in this great space of technology, networks, and systems. Information such as patient’s information, treatments, machinery, as well as having a better way to have secure place to store them and have authorization in accessing them. However, such tools had been used as weapons by those who want to have access and possession of such critical information and control by cyber criminals, thieves, and terrorists. Unfortunately, it’s not simple to live in a world in which laws can just simply protect institutions that help save lives. Rather, hospitals have fallen as victims of cyberattacks.

Numerous health care industries have been victims of cyber-attacks. Such attacks occur when an isolated device transfers the stored medical data to the hospital’s network, which could possibly takeover the entire network of the hospital and intercept data exchange between the patient and the healthcare center. For instance, wearable devices such as the (insulin) diabetes kit that determines the exact amount to be discharged into the patient’s blood, based on

Today’s business world is constantly evolving, technology is improving exponentially and international business relations are a necessity for global companies to function. This is an amazing time we live in, society is fortunate that technology has enabled interaction across the globe. This communication technology also comes with challenges to maintain an acceptable level of balance between work and personal time management. Always being available, plugged into social media, email, text messages and calls; leads to information overload and little time for human minds to reflect upon the massive information coming in. This leaves people distracted constantly and not

Security breaches in protected health information can carry heavy consequences. The HITECH ACT requires any incident affecting more than 500 patients to be reported and investigated (“Breaches Affecting 500”). This exposure can be damaging to the health organization’s image and reputation. Not only does this generate bad publicity which can damage patient’s trust in the healthcare organization but the potential of financial consequences as well. According to a Ponemon Institute study, data breaches cost United States hospitals approximately $6 billion per year (“Data Breaches Cost”). Healthcare

In 2015, the healthcare industry was the most attacked by cyber criminals according to a Cyber Security Intelligence Index by IBM. The data showed that over 100 million healthcare records were compromised during that year, from more than 8,000 devices in more than 100 countries. This development unmasks a truth that can’t be hidden by the healthcare industry it has become a prime target of cyber-attacks. The healthcare industry is facing a host of cyber security issues, which has financial and reputational impact for hospitals and other healthcare institutions. IBM’s Cyber Security Intelligence report is just one of a handful of industry findings that underscore the obvious: data in many healthcare institutions are being compromised every single day (Ryan, 2017).

As more companies have made use of technology and have been offering digital services, they have been facing the issue of data breaches which has negatively impacted their businesses. During recent years, data breaches have been high in number. Only in 2011 there were 535 breaches reported in the US, which involved 30.4 million sensitive records (Caldwell, 2012). In 2012, The New York State Electric & Gas Co. in Rochester, New York experienced a data breach involving 1.8 million files containing people’s personal information, such as social security numbers, and bank accounts. Utah Department of Technology Services also experienced an attack by hackers which exposed 780,000 patient files (Arma International, 2012). Important information