Speaker 1: Hi everybody, Karen Robey here at Macy Bairn for Tech Republic and we're talking about data security which is something Macy we talk about a lot with every industry really impacted by the concerns and the healthcare industry specifically we're talking about privacy is a huge deal for everyone in this industry so how concerned should people be? Very, I mean the healthcare industry

Speaker 2: is probably one of the most at-risk industries there are because they store and organize so much personal information I mean think about if you go in for a checkup what the forms you fill out the first time that you go to an emergency clinic right there's all exactly I mean your address your you know all of your personal information is stored in their systems and with 100 percent of healthcare organizations using digital transformation initiatives this puts us at a huge threat vector especially because 38 percent or less of these organizations are using encryption methods.

Speaker 1: That's pretty scary.

Speaker 2: Oh it's terrifying especially because we have all of these data and privacy issues in industries where they are they're encrypting at a much higher percentage than 38 percent right but this is one where the majority of people have their information in some sort of healthcare system and that's scary and and one of the biggest ways that the healthcare industry are using digital and transformation initiatives is through the multi cloud or just cloud in general 80 percent of organizations are either storing or storing data. Yeah. Or organizing or managing information in the cloud and so if that cloud were to be compromised in some way. Right. Everybody's information would be compromised as well. So that's a scary thing to think about. It's also hard because it's hard for for people to keep their own information secure when they don't have control over it. Right.

Speaker 1: And you trust. I think exactly that it is being especially a health care provider. Right. Exactly. And the other day you know actually we were at the physician's office and on the forms the long ones you were talking. I even asked for social security numbers. Exactly. Exactly. All of your personal.

Speaker 2: Really personal personal information. Exactly. But but there are steps that that health care organizations can take. Right. Luckily. So some of those are focusing on all of these threat vectors and being aware of it. That's why it's helpful to write about these things and to get these things out in the open. That's why reading reports are helpful to see where these threat vectors are coming out the most. So being just aware of the threat vectors of course first and then investing. And I think that's a really important part of what we're trying to do is to be able to do this in modern hybrid and multi cloud based data security solutions that can scale to these modern architectures because having these these cloud solutions is is pretty normal in in most organizations. But you have to also have security measures that go along with them like anything. I mean when you get a new computer you're going to want to have some sort of other firewall or different security solutions to go with that.

Speaker 1: Right.

Speaker 2: And the third one would be to prioritize compliance issues. Right. Right. Compliance issues because compliance is is a big issue in the United States at least and then also to adopt new data security strategies including encryption and access management and with only 38 percent of health care organizations adopting encryption that that obviously needs to increase and I'm sure that those I'm sure that those organizations have had more success with keeping data safe than those that don't encrypt information. So it's just being aware of these things. And employing the correct solutions and investing those solutions that that organizations in the health care industry really do need to focus on.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know we when you talk about the health care industry of course we hear so much about HIPAA.

Speaker 2: Oh exactly. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean that's why it's in place that people don't find out about your information people you don't want to. And and whether and now we're at a point with technology that it isn't even word of mouth it's not even trusting people it's trusting the technology. Right. So there's only so much that we can do. Um. Without putting the right security measures with technology in place.

Speaker 1: So unfortunately you know we hear about every industry is impacted by breaches and I know at one point I believe it was Aetna was one of the providers that was hacked as well. So you know they're not immune and unfortunately this is an industry that has a lot of data. It is.

Speaker 2: It really is and it's that which puts them at the most risk compared to other industries. All right.

Speaker 1: Well that full report and Macy's story of course can be found on Tech Republic. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 2: We'll see you next time.