Healthcare Data Breaches

Medical Data Security Breaches in 2015

Only three months into the year 2015, and we have already seen two significant security breaches of medical data. In February 2015, Anthem reported that hackers broke into a database that contained information on more than 80 million customers. One month later, Premera Blue Cross experienced a similar attack that exposed personal information on over 11 million of their customers.

The Department of Health and Human Services reports any breach of medical data that affects 500 or more people, and the frequency of such events is staggering. Medical data for more than 120 million people has been compromised since 2009 and the list grows each year. Compromised sources for these breaches include laptops, desktop computers, portable electronic devices, emails, paper or film, network servers, and more. The methods of these breaches run the gamut – everything from theft, hacking, unauthorized access, loss of portable device, IT incidents, improper disposal – the list goes on and on.

How can your organization better secure your confidential records and protect both your customers and your employees data? AccuImage’s SmartCipher™ software secures data at the file level, and this security travels with the file itself. Policies can be set to allow confidential files to be accessed only on certain networks, by authorized users, and even by specific IP addresses. Using AES 128-bit encryption technology, protected documents cannot be accessed if the conditions set by the policies governing this data have not been met.

Organizations using SmartCipher™ Enterprise can set organic policies that watch documents that are created and accessed within the domain so that security is set as soon as a data security policy is triggered. For instance, a policy can be set to automatically secure documents of any type if they contain a string that fits the format of a Social Security number. As soon as such a string is entered and the document saved, the applicable policy takes effect.

SmartCipher™ Mobility allows the same protection for digital documents that travel away from your organization’s office when employees work from home or travel for business.

While standard network and domain security is still important, our SmartCipher™ suite adds an additional layer of security to your company’s files that make your confidential data safe even if it falls into the wrong hands. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help your company with its data security needs.