In the past 9 months, there are countless examples of this failure to address cyber security and application architecture in the correct fashion world-wide. Consider this, what if the breach was more than a leak of data, what if it kept you from being able to perform critical services such as blood transfusions, like the hospital that was breached in Ukraine?
This dangerous oversight of security, particularly as healthcare data becomes an increasingly attractive target for cybercriminals, and the escalation of organizational breaches as a whole demands us to take a deeper, proactive approach.
Let’s pretend you are a healthcare startup, fresh off an $11 million Series A funding round, and likely allocated substantial resources to development, marketing, and operational expansion. But what about your security posture? Compliance and security go hand in hand; without a robust security framework, you risk non-compliance, which could lead to severe penalties and loss of patient trust, and maybe even a damaging business reputation loss that brings your growth to a grinding halt...Its happening every day, startups and legacy organizations still have not come to the realization that a security-first posture is needed.
Traditionally, organizations have allocated less than 3% of their IT budgets to cybersecurity, a figure that’s grossly miscalculated… The increasing threats have become more sophisticated. In cloud environments, where much of healthcare data now resides, the need for advanced security measures is even greater. By 2024, global cloud security spending is expected to hit $7 billion, reflecting the critical importance of protecting data in these environments. New estimates suggest that Cyber Security budgets need to reflect between 5-10 % of total budget: not limited to IT, especially in the formative years of building up the organization. By taking this approach, you allow your organization to fully leverage the cloud's potential, maximizing the capabilities and tools of your cloud service provider.
Cyber security reflects a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY MODEL, and many organizations don't even realize this. It's not enough to be in the cloud, all the tools are there at your fingertips, but failure to make use of them or misconfigurations in security and compliance can become infrastructure nightmares after the organization has matured…and when the breach happens, IT'S ON YOU to know how to respond and mitigate risk, your cloud provider won't be there walking your team through an incident response plan; once the bad actors are through the gate, all you will see is alerts and logging happening in a silo somewhere that you can't find, and who knows what virtual machine has compromised the entire data structure…
Adopting a Secure Cloud Application Framework (SCAF) is essential for healthcare providers. SCAF not only helps mitigate risks but also ensures compliance through continuous monitoring, logging, and advanced threat detection. It’s a proactive approach that keeps your IT systems secure and compliant, safeguarding both your business and your patients’ data.
As you finalize your budget, ask yourself: How much is patient privacy worth? Investing in cybersecurity isn’t just about protecting data; it’s about protecting your entire business. Don’t wait for a breach to understand the true cost of underinvestment in security. Your healthcare organization’s life depends on it.
