Cybercrime Security Threat: Healthcare Data Breaches

Cybercrime Security Threat Student’s Name Institution Date Cybercrime Security Threat Introduction In recent years, there have been numerous cases of healthcare data breaches that have grown both in size and frequency. The largest of these issues have impacted as many as eighty million people worldwide. Data breaches involved in healthcare typically exposes highly sensitive information from personally identifiable information that includes Social Security information, names and also addresses which are highly sensitive (Hasib, 2014). Such information contains Medicaid ID numbers, health insurance information and also the medical histories of patients. The motives behind cyber-attacks on healthcare companies are typically clear as they include health insurance institutions, pharmacies, urgent care clinics and numerous other healthcare providers. These enterprises typically maintain records of their clients and patients, which are highly valuable and hackers and data breaches usually target them for identity theft which is more rampant than any other industry. The focus of the paper will include an assessment of the data breaches in healthcare and the laws and regulations violated will also be analyzed. Additionally, the impact associated with this type of breach will be analyzed. Laws violated and analysis of data breaches The global estimates regarding cybercrime currently highlighted that cybercrime and all associated activities costs above forty billion dollars yearly. This issue costs the U.S alone, over four billion dollars annually. Cybercrime has become a highly complex and challenging issue and it consists of numerous communication devices especially in a specific network (Hasib, 2014). Newkirk Products Inc. is a service provider in healthcare threat provides healthcare identification cars for health insurance plan which includes numerous Blue Cross Blue Shield branches. The institution in 2016 began notifying over three million individuals concerning the large data breach (Snell, 2016). During this year, an unauthorized individual an unauthorized access toward a server that contained names mailing addressed member and group identification numbers and also their Medicaid information which was highly harmful to the institution (Abel, 2016). The intruders exploited the weakness within the administrative portal of their third-party software on their single isolated server, then acquired unauthorized access towards their system. Even though the health data security was not at risk since no health plan system was accessed, this was highly negative for the organization as their entire firewall system had been compromised from this hacking attempt (Abel, 2016). Another healthcare enterprise that has been affected by this type of cybercrime is Banner Health. This enterprise in 2016 indicated that the breach involved hackers acquiring unauthorized access towards the essential patient and client information. This also included their payment card information. The affected individuals were almost over two million as these included patients, food and beverage consumers, medical practitioners and also health plan members (Snell, 2016). The breach was termed as one of the most significant breaches for a health institution in 2016.Th...