Healthcare data breaches will cost industry $4 billion by year's end, and 2020 is poised to be worse

It’s difficult to stay ahead of data breaches, and healthcare leaders seem to largely agree that it’s only getting more challenging – and that’s bad news for the financial health of the industry, as data breaches are projected to cost healthcare $4 billion by the end of the year. 2020 could be even more costly.

NInety-six percent of IT professionals in a new Black Book Market Research survey agreed with the sentiments that data attackers are outpacing their medical enterprises, holding providers at a disadvantage in responding to vulnerabilities.

Thus far in 2019, healthcare providers continued to be the most targeted organizations for industry cybersecurity breaches with nearly 4 out of 5 breaches, whereas successful attacks on health insurers and plans maintained with more sophisticated information security solutions had little change year to year. More than half of all provider breaches were caused by external hacking according to respondents.