The covid-19 pandemic has caused the healthcare sector to change in many ways. Regional, national and international cooperation has reached an impressive scale, bringing together healthcare experts, healthcare software developers, researchers, and businesses. To ensure a smooth exchange of information, governments had to soften their intricate data security policies and let researchers and other experts share COVID-19-related information. Although it is a welcome change, which has facilitated healthcare development and research, it has also given a golden opportunity to malicious cybercriminals to exploit the situation to gain profit.

Looking at 2021, when the world is still struggling to find a definite solution to the covid-19 challenges, there’s an urgent need for the global healthcare sector to focus on data privacy and security. Some of the key focus areas are:

Data classification and security

After the pandemic, several healthcare services are being provided online, and patient information represents a high-value proposition for hackers. That’s why organizations must take every precaution to safeguard patient data. Any security breach can have a significant impact on both patients and healthcare providers.

Data classification can help healthcare providers get a clear picture of all data within an organization’s control, understand where it is stored, ways to access it and figure out ways to protect it from potential security risks.

It also ensures data on all networks and systems is protected and can be recovered quickly after an attack.

Enhanced edge technology and security solutions

Before the pandemic, data security challenges were hitting the healthcare world hard. But as several healthcare professionals were forced to work remotely after the pandemic, many data vulnerabilities and risks were exposed.

Changes in how medical care was provided also opened up a host of avenues for cyberattacks.

Adding to the difficulties of these security challenges are the regulatory framework and compliance challenges.

All this said, securing patient and organizational data is a top priority now for healthcare organizations.

• Healthcare organizations today are thinking of protecting data not just within their organization’s walls but also outside of it.
• Today, several healthcare organizations are building a risk-aware culture, which includes examining where security risks lie in the organization, educating employees about the data security risks, and implementing the right tools after the vulnerabilities are identified.
• Some are even implementing intelligent analytics to help monitor operations.
• While others are integrating next-generation threat intelligence solutions for faster threat detection and response.

The solution to the ever-growing threat of data breaches is implementing foundational controls that integrate into different solutions to respond to threats proactively. Using stringent security controls also means delivering effective compliance and security standards, which is important for every healthcare provider.