Data Loss Prevention in Healthcare

When it comes to DLP, security leaders have hundreds – if not thousands – of networks and endpoints to monitor and lock down. But, when asked what threat vector they’re most concerned about protecting, they said email. 

It makes sense. 

Over 306.4 billion emails were sent and received in 2020 and employees spend 40% of their time on email. Accidents happen.

For example, in 2019 when an employee at a gender identity clinic in London exposed the details of close to 2,000 people on its email list after cc’ing recipients instead of bcc’ing them. A simple mistake can cause big problems, especially with strict data privacy laws like HIPAA and HITECH. 

Unfortunately, accidents like this happen a lot more frequently than security leaders estimate.

For more examples of data breaches caused by misdirected emails, click here.

So, why do employees make mistakes at work that compromise security? According to employees, the top three reasons are: stress, fatigue, and distraction.

And, while many organizations are slowly transitioning back to the office, the rise of virtual health and telemedicine have enabled some to adopt permanent remote or hybrid working structures.

The problem is, over half (59%) of security leaders in healthcare say they’re concerned about employees’ unsafe data security practices in a hybrid-remote environment. And they have every right to be concerned. 

42% of employees working in healthcare say they’re less likely to follow safe data practices when working remotely. 

While healthcare has the highest costs associated with data breaches – 60% higher than the average across all industries – and has for ten years running, the cost of a breach isn’t security leaders’ biggest concern.

Instead, our research shows that across industries, they’re most worried about losing customers and their trust, lost data, and a damaged reputation.

But, if you break that data down even further and isolate security leaders working in healthcare specifically, you can see a stark difference. Instead of losing customer trust and a damaged reputation, their top concerns are losing their jobs and lost IP. 

Healthcare customers like Cordaan and British Medical Association trust Tessian to keep their critical client, patient, and employee data safe. Across two solutions, Tessian automatically detects and prevents misdirected emails, mistattached files, and unauthorized emails.  No rules required. 

Better still, Tessian helps improve employees’ security reflexes long-term with in-the-moment warnings that reinforce security policies while nudging them towards safer behavior over time. And, with employee risk scores that update automatically, security leaders get a bird’s eye view of their most risky and at-risk employees.

It’s the only solution that offers protection, training, and risk analytics all in one platform, giving security leaders a clear picture of their organization’s risk and the tools needed to reduce that risk.