Health care industry vulnerable to cyber attacks

Data protection challenges that the health care industry faces exceed the challenges other industries face, said Rob Sadowski, Bedford, Massachusetts-based director of technology solutions at RSA, the security division of technology provider EMC Corp.

“In health care, the open exchange of information is really important for the speed and quality of patient care,” Mr. Sadowski said. “However, there are a lot of potential points of vulnerability as this information moves through the health care ecosystem.”

Moreover, the health care sector has not been as aggressive as other industries in investing in the advance security technologies and techniques to detect the most sophisticated types of cyber fraud, Mr. Sadowski said.

Accordingly, he advises companies to acquire the latest intrusion detection technology and develop a team with the capabilities to neutralize threats.

“You need an intelligence-driven approach to security in order to give you better visibility and help you spot attacks,” Mr. Sadowski said.

“Once you are better at detection, the next step is crafting an incident response plan. The goal has to be to stop attacks before they turn into a business loss, and you need a team or competency in handling those incidents in real time,” he said.