New Delhi: “We hope India, like everywhere else, will soon follow the HIPAA compliance as data protection is an opportunity for everybody,” said Mark Hickman, COO, Winmagic.
With growing adoption of cloud and mobility solution in the healthcare sector, data today has more value than any other commodity, making hospitals, patient health records, doctors’ offices, pharmacies the prime targets due to abundance of health data.
Talking on the importance of protecting healthcare records, Hickman said, “Healthcare records are more valuable than any financial record, it is the first thing that the hackers are after. Securing them by putting policies and technologies in place is something that needs to be urgently focussed on.
According to the 2017 SecurityMetrics Guide to HIPAA Compliance, healthcare organizations accounted for more than 36 percent of 2016’s reported data breaches.
HIPAA, which stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information.
Today, western organisations are looking at security as a whole and as a key part of their business strategy. Leading data and analytics company GlobalData’s recent survey findings stated that healthcare providers across the globe are ramping up their investments in security architecture to reduce the risk of cyber-attacks and protect their patients’ data.
According to Hickman, encrypting files and virtual machines that have sensitive data is a preventive measure through which one can protect his data and anybody who tries to steal it fails to do so as the data is completely encrypted.
“It is really important for organisations to have a data centric architecture whereby they can understand what data they have and then protect it,” said Hickman.
The legislations like HIPAA and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation — a legal framework that sets guidelines for the collection and processing of personal information of individuals) are giving certain companies a leg up as many Indian companies deal on a global basis and are already securing data.
GlobalData’s survey of healthcare providers revealed that a significant number are investing in security sensors. The survey showed that 62% of respondents currently use security sensors, while 55% of respondents plan to invest in this domain in the coming two years.
“India is becoming a major global player in the industry but if people feel that their records could be compromised they might rather go somewhere else because there is nothing more personal than one’s healthcare records,” concluded Hickman.
