The global average cost of a data breach has risen by a maximum of 10% in the current year 2024 reaching $4.88 million as estimated by IBM in his Cost of a Data Breach Report. This year’s cost of a breach for the healthcare industry is 10.6% lower than the previous year but is still leading in high costs for breach remediation with the figure standing at $ 9.77 million.

These costs have skyrocket a few due to ransomware attacks that S opened raise nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023 as seen through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Recent attacks in organizations such as Change Healthcare and Ascension have demonstrated how efficiently these attacks can be used for extortion.

Ransomware is very devastating in healthcare since patients’ records are sensitive. Similar to what I discovered, when data of the patients are encrypted, the treatments are greatly inconvenienced, and in some instances, people are even put at risk of losing their lives. There is immense pressure from executives and patient families for organizations to remedy these occurrences as soon as possible resulting in the organizations paying the ransom irrespective of the implications.

This position makes the situation in healthcare IT rather volatile for the teams that are faced with financial, operational, and ethical concerns. The need to regain access to important patient data generates a greater propensity of paying the ransom compared to the rest of the industries, even though there is no certainty of recovering the files or the attackers will not reemerge.

With the ransomware threat persisting, healthcare organizations need to strengthen their cybersecurity to prevent container compromise and protect their data.