Cybersecurity Awareness Why It's Everyone's
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Cybersecurity Awareness Why It’s Everyone’s

Amelia

For long-time cybersecurity industry veterans, we’re in an age we never thought possible  “Cybersecurity Awareness: Why It’s Everyone’s Cybersecurity Awareness  It’s a Shared Responsibility  cybersecurity has moved from a backroom, “IT-only” relegation to a top-of-mind business objective. Right where we always thought it should be. However, this new cybersecurity accountability and regulation era has yet to be fully disseminated throughout corporate culture and the broader public consciousness. Despite laudable industry efforts, strengthened government requirements, and much more C-suite visibility, the message has yet to hit home everywhere: cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility.   One may see why healthcare workers would associate “cybersecurity” with intricate systems and technical terms that don’t seem relevant. However, Cybersecurity is far more than just IT departments and IT specialists. It concerns securing private patient data, maintaining the accuracy of medical records, and guarding against any dangers that can jeopardize patient treatment, safety, and data. Nam Lam, Managing Director ANZ at SailPoint, highlights that Cybersecurity is everyone’s duty and offers views on the growing danger of cyberattacks to the healthcare sector.

The difficulty of Cybersecurity in the medical field

The healthcare industry has a big problem keeping up with Cybersecurity. 93% of healthcare organizations have had a breach in the last two years, and over half of these instances resulted in operational outages. Why is Cybersecurity important Healthcare organizations store large volumes of sensitive personal data, medical records, diagnostic reports, and patient billing information. As more of this data is stored in digital systems, fraudsters find them easy targets. Systems that hold, manage, and store patients’ pertinent health information as part of their care, such as electronic medical records systems, are difficult to secure because they must be continuously accessed by various people, including physicians, clinicians, nurses, and support staff, as part of their official duties, as well as by other IT systems. For patient care and administration, medical personnel also employ a variety of apps, each with unique security and access needs. This may result in physicians having many usernames and passwords, which we all know need to be unique and complicated, but this isn’t usually the case. Unsurprisingly, the healthcare sector accounted for 22% of the data breaches reported to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) in the second half of 2023. The OAIC has made the protection of personal data a top priority, given that compromised credentials account for the majority of the causes (58%) of these incidents.

Is there anything hospitals and healthcare organizations can do about it

Prevent a breach by identifying the cyber threat. According to Calvary and others, custom permission levels are the solution to guaranteeing safe access to private data. Employees will only have access to the tools and systems they need if access credentials are allocated according to their roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, it guarantees that legal standards continuously maintain sensitive and regulated information and that quick and safe access to resources adapts automatically if employees join, change positions, or depart the company. This method creates a more regulated access environment by limiting unauthorized personnel’s access to critical data. Manually managing specific permissions may be difficult, particularly in big, intricate healthcare organizations. Therefore, automated access control systems make granting and revoking rights easier, guaranteeing that employees always have the right amount of access without placing an undue administrative load on them. SailPoint’s use of automated rights management during the COVID-19 epidemic allowed it to swiftly enroll thousands of triage nurses, demonstrating the effectiveness of this strategy. This included giving each nurse a unique set of permission levels, making sure they could access important systems only when necessary, and relieving them of a large portion of the administrative load so they could concentrate on their job.

A cybersecurity-aware culture: Everyone’s obligation

Regardless of the quality of the technology, organizations cannot afford to remain complacent. Cybercriminals often utilize advanced phishing attempts to target the healthcare industry, acquiring login credentials necessary to access private patient information. Raising awareness about Cybersecurity is essential. Everyone, from frontline physicians to administrative personnel, is essential to this endeavor. Healthcare organizations should run security awareness programs, educate employees on Cybersecurity best practices regularly, and urge them to report suspicious activities. When knowledge and responsibility increase, employees are more equipped to identify and address such dangers. Cyber dangers are a given in the current digital era; they are not only a possibility. Regardless of technological expertise, everyone must grasp the fundamentals of Cybersecurity since most financial and communication activities occur online. Despite their apparent separation, Cybersecurity for individuals and businesses is tightly related.  How we handle our online safety affects the businesses we work for, and their cybersecurity policies directly impact us. Put another way, we must be on guard to be secure in the increasingly dangerous digital environment. Learning new skills is necessary for individuals to remain ahead of internet dangers. For instance, consumers may be duped into believing misleading information or even sending money to criminals using deepfakes, films created by artificial intelligence (AI) that mimic humans.

Hands-on training allows building practical knowledge and confidence in identifying and avoiding these changing risks. Learners at all levels may enhance their cybersecurity knowledge and abilities with entertaining, interactive tutorials on websites such as TryHackMe. Learning how to stay safe online is an essential life skill, just like learning to drive or handle money. Businesses must constantly refresh their cybersecurity understanding. Because cyber risks are always changing, annual one-time training courses are insufficient. Training also has to be interesting and relevant. It’s not only about avoiding scam emails; it’s also about knowing how each employee’s work impacts the organization’s security. For instance, workers in human resources should concentrate on potential hazards, while those in finance should learn about dangers unique to their jobs. Customized training helps staff members grasp their part in maintaining the organization’s security and gives Cybersecurity a more real sense. Additionally, new technologies are simplifying and personalizing cybersecurity instruction. Chatbots from businesses like Anthropic and OpenAI are greatly improving cybersecurity education. “Give me a five-question quiz about cybersecurity and then provide a lesson based on my answers” is one way to ask an AI. Everyone, from CEOs to recruits, finds learning more interesting when they engage in this kind of engagement. Adopting the proper mentality on a personal and organizational level is ultimately what cybersecurity awareness is all about. It goes beyond just learning a list of recommended procedures by heart. It’s about being proactive and knowledgeable.

Taking Cybersecurity’s urgency seriously

Healthcare organizations and our digital healthcare systems must invest in Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity may feel overwhelming, but ignoring it may have serious consequences as cyber threats become more sophisticated. Given that the digital healthcare sector is anticipated to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 20% through 2030ii, the time to act is now. Healthcare organizations need a thorough security strategy to safeguard patient data and medical records. Addressing compromised credentials, encouraging teamwork, embracing digitization, and advancing a cybersecurity-aware culture are all part of this. Strong identity security measures are also essential for monitoring user activity, having complete insight into all identities, and streamlining and improving identity management procedures like permissions and access requests. Digital platforms will be crucial for scaling healthcare services and making sure they are accessible and inclusive to everyone as our population increases and demands on healthcare systems and providers increase. Healthcare organizations may protect patient privacy, implement the digital solutions they need, and remain resilient in the face of more complex threats by adopting a proactive approach to identity management and security. The Challenges of Cybersecurity Today
Organized criminal rings—groups of individuals collaborating in offices with supervisors, Monday through Friday—are responsible for 80% of cybercrime. They cooperate on best practices, purchase and trade attack platforms, and focus their assaults using analytics. Hackers have made around $500 billion in total profits in the last year.

Making Future Plans

The number of experts required to stop cyberattacks is decreasing as the channels and techniques that cybercriminals use expand. According to Frost and Sullivan’s research titled candidates they recruit and ensure they get training in areas needing improvement. Given the ever-increasing speed of cybercriminals, cooperation and continuous security training must change. Employers may provide their staff members with these materials and advice to ensure their security consciousness. As a result, they need to make wiser decisions about their online behavior and personal security. Ultimately, we must all realize that Cybersecurity is a shared duty. In today’s vastly connected digital world, we are all connected within it as participants of this voluntary digital contract. If your healthcare data is stolen from XYZ company’s database, mine (and potentially millions of others) was likely, too. But this is no new news, and the public has long clamored for increased digital privacy—and, thankfully, gotten it. How does this apply to businesses? There is no longer room for any organization connected to the Internet in any way, using a SaaS application or storing a single piece of personally identifiable information (PII), to think that it’s off the radar of attackers. Every company, from the smallest mom-and-pop to the largest government defense contractor, is connected to a vast ocean of shared digital information, and threat actors can pull in at any port. If you’re not a ‘major player,’ you’re likely connected to one via the supply chain. And you’ve somehow managed to avoid the physical supply chain altogether. In that case, you’re likely still drawing your source code from open-source databases, engaging with SaaS platforms, or utilizing applications that have open-source code pulled in.

Shared Responsibility Is Not Just for Cloud

The shared responsibility model is nothing new for anyone operating on one of the major cloud platforms. AWS notes that this “shared responsibility between AWS and the customer” entails AWS protecting the cloud itself while customers protect what’s in it. As they explain, “customer assumes responsibility and management of the guest operating system (including updates and security patches), [along with] other associated application software as well as the configuration of the AWS provided security group firewall. So, even when a business engages with the highly secure Amazon Web Services, more cybersecurity controls, technologies, and policies must still be implemented before the organization’s total cloud-hosted assets can be responsibly considered secure against today’s rapidly evolving cyber threats. While there is no official name for it, this same model (Shared Responsibility) is increasingly applicable to third-party risk.

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Think of Third-Party Vendors

Companies that work with third-party vendors know the inherent insecurity of sharing cyber immune systems. What can happen to one (usually the smaller supply chain partner) can easily infiltrate the other, as devastating indirect attacks on Target, Maersk, and SolarWinds have shown. US federal regulations like DFARS and CMMC mandate that certain cybersecurity requirements be observed by businesses working with the Department of Defense (DOD), and the EU’s nascent DORA deals directly with third-party regulation. Current frameworks are even being retrofitted to include more supply chain considerations. The NIS2 Directive (EU), out last February, requires covered entities to take a risk-based approach to third-party management, which means carefully assessing the risks of those organizations before inking contracts, especially when it comes to critical infrastructure.  NIST 2.0 adds new supply chain and third-party risk management controls under the new ‘Govern’ function. These regulations are for organizations taking on third parties, not the third parties themselves. This proves that while a supply chain weakness may be ‘somebody else’s fault,’ the ultimate legal responsibility belongs to the third-party vendor and the institution that took it on. Today’s legislation acknowledges in writing that cybersecurity is, in truth, everybody’s responsibility.

What About Users

Today’s users are also beginning to understand the need to watch out for themselves online and assume some share of responsibility for their digital safety. Data privacy laws protecting individuals’ rights have cropped up worldwide – in 137 countries. Starting with GDPR, other non-European countries came out with their own data privacy laws within the next few years (Brazil, Thailand, China, Saudi Arabia, and India), illustrating the responsibility governments feel to enact cybersecurity laws to protect their citizens – and the consensus that the public expects them to do so. Users aren’t above taking care of themselves. In addition to calling for increased government protection, over a third of Americans are now using password managers, and 75% of adults in the UK and Spain feel that tech companies have excessive control over their personal data.

Cybersecurity Accountability

Ultimately, cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility because the fallout affects us when something goes wrong. Several people are held accountable when a company experiences a data breach—say ransomware—and even more are impacted. First, the CEO and CISO will rightly be held accountable. Next, security managers will bear their share of the blame and be scrutinized for how they handled the situation. Then, laws and lawmakers will be audited to see if the proper rules are in place. If found guilty, the organization will be investigated for compliance violations, pay regulatory fines and legal costs, and may lose professional licenses. If the company cannot recover from the reputational damage, revenue will be lost, and jobs will be cut. Lastly, and most importantly, the users who lost their data can likely be impacted for years, even a lifetime. Bank accounts, and credit cards will need to be changed, identity theft will be a pressing risk, and in the case of healthcare data breaches, sensitive, unchangeable information could be leaked or used as blackmail against the victims.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity has become a critical aspect of our modern digital lives, impacting individuals, businesses, and governments alike. As technology advances, so do the methods and tactics employed by cybercriminals. The responsibility to safeguard sensitive information, systems, and networks extends beyond IT professionals—it is a shared responsibility that requires collective effort from everyone who engages in the digital world. At an individual level, practicing good cybersecurity hygiene is fundamental. Simple actions like using strong, unique passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and being vigilant about suspicious emails can prevent many common attacks. Regularly updating devices and software ensures vulnerabilities are patched, reducing the risk of exploitation. Educating oneself about phishing scams and recognizing social engineering tactics further empowers individuals to stay safe online. Cybersecurity Awareness It’s a Shared Responsibility For businesses and organizations, creating a culture of cybersecurity is essential. This involves not only implementing robust security measures but also educating employees about their role in safeguarding company data. Training sessions, awareness campaigns, and clear communication about cybersecurity policies can equip teams to recognize and respond to potential threats effectively. Collaboration between departments, from IT to human resources, reinforces the idea that cybersecurity is not just an IT issue but a company-wide priority.