2023-03-07

How Healthcare is a Prime Target for Cybercriminals

Level: 
Strategic
  |  Source: 
Imperva
Healthcare
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How Healthcare is a Prime Target for Cybercriminals

Category: Threat Actor Activity | Industry: Healthcare | Level: Strategic | Source: Imperva

Attacks tracked by Imperva across various industries have found the healthcare sector accounts for approximately 6% of the total attacks, making it a highly profitable target for attackers. With the abundance of data stored in patient portals, the healthcare sector faces a significant risk of account takeover. The category of personal data from personal health information (PHI) holds great value from its sale on the dark web capable of fetching thousands of dollars since PHI is everlasting. This differs from the sale of stolen credit card data which can be easily disabled. Disrupting hospital operations can also cause dire situations for targeted entities with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks easily garnering attention from cybercrime groups such as Killnet. The group recently launched attacks on healthcare sites in January 2023, resulting in over six times the average requests per second (RPS). The healthcare sector's operations and data hold immense importance, and in the event of an attack, restoring operational systems need to ensure seamless continuity of patient care. This factor makes the healthcare industry more susceptible to paying ransoms compared to other sectors.

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