At over $60 billion per year, Medicare fraud has become one of the most profitable crimes in America, say analysts. In South Florida, health information fraud has replaced cocaine as the major criminal enterprise. As health care providers have fully turned digital with Electronic Health Records that contain protected health information, health information data breaches are also increasing in number, frequency and magnitude across the globe. 

Individuals tend to disclose the most intimate details about themselves to their doctors only with the trust that their health information will remain private and secure, whether it resides in a file at their doctor’s office, on a hospital chart, or in a claims form at their insurance provider. Protected Health Information (PHI) is being handled by a large number of stakeholders – physicians, therapists, clinics, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists, insurers, insurance companies, law firms, telemedicine firms and other agencies.

These stakeholders are responsible for the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all PHI they create, receive, maintain, transmit, or store. This responsibility includes implementing appropriate safeguards against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of that information.

PHI - Threats & Vulnerabilities

Threats for protected health information emanate both from external attacks and internal sources.

External Attacks – Health care enterprises come into contact with a variety of people in a variety of ways.  Sensitive information and IT resources need to be exposed or shared with partners, agencies and even customers. All these make the enterprises vulnerable to data breaches and cyber-attacks from amateur and expert hackers.

Internal Threats - Threat to information security does not always develop from outside. It could well be generating right inside the organization. Disgruntled staff, greedy techies, tech-savvy contractors and sacked employees could act with malicious intent and misuse privileged access. Even untrained staff could unintentionally unleash a disaster. The business and reputation of some of the world’s mightiest organizations have been shattered in the past by a handful of malicious insiders.

Researchers point out that more than half of data breaches involve the participation of an insider, but only 10% are unintentional – whereas 90% are deliberate and malicious and usually involve misuse of privileges.

How to combat?

Preventing or detecting a breach requires that effective policies, procedures, and technologies are in place. Without proper technology in place, policies and procedures would remain ineffective and cannot be enforced.  The CISOs, CIOs, IT security, privacy, and compliance personnel of health care organizations, who are tasked with the responsibility of protecting PHI should keep in mind the fact that the benefits of investing in technologies to prevent PHI breach, far more outweigh the potential cost involved in setting them up.

ManageEngine is here to help!

Combating sophisticated cyber threats involving protected health information mandates a multi-pronged strategy incorporating a complex set activities including deploying security devices, enforcing security policies, controlling access to resources, monitoring events, analyzing logs, detecting vulnerabilities, managing patches, tracking changes, ensuring compliance, monitoring traffic and other activities.

ManageEngine has a range of affordable Enterprise Security Management Software Solutions that help you build a secure fortress enabling you to protect PHI, stay secure, ensure business continuity and enhance producvity.

A Strong Perimeter - Security Manager Plus Identify vulnerabilities & secure your boundary The first step in building a fortress is to secure your boundary, understand your vulnerabilities and initiate action for protection. For a strong perimeter in enterprises, you must: scan your network, create inventory of network assets identify network vulnerabilities & remediate them swiftly detect missing patches, hot-fixes & security updates on Windows and Linux and deploy them quickly manage changes to Windows files, folders and registry stay informed with audit reports on open ports, hardware and software Try Security Manager Plus!	www.securitymanagerplus.com
A Secret Chamber - Password Manager Pro Protect the keys to your kingdom After building the fortress, the keys to your kingdom need to be protected.  A strong perimeter just protects you from external attacks. But, to guard yourself from malicious insiders, you need a secure, centralized ‘secret chamber’ for safe upkeep of the keys and control over privileged access to a select few. In enterprises, you need to: securely store, manage and control access to shared sensitive information such as passwords, documents and digital identities eliminate password fatigue and security lapses improve IT productivity many times by automating frequent password changes required in critical systems establish preventive & detective security controls through approval workflows & real-time alerts on password access meet security audits and regulatory compliances such as SOX, HIPAA and PCI  Try Password Manager Pro!	www.passwordmanagerpro.com
The Citadel - DeviceExpert Establish a centralized authority for network device configurations In the fortress, the citadel is the seat of the centralized authority and is the strongest component. In enterprises, network devices are the crucial components. Any unauthorized configuration change could wreak havoc on the network. To secure device configurations, you need to automate backup of configurations of  switches, routers, firewalls & other devices track configuration changes in real-time & generate notifications prevent unauthorized configuration changes control access to configurations & enforce role-based restrictions for configuration upload check configurations for compliance to policies & standards get complete record of 'who', 'what' and 'when' of device configuration changes automate the entire life-cycle of device configuration tasks Try DeviceExpert!	www.deviceexpert.com
The Operational Command Center - Desktop Central Constitute centralized control for servers & desktops In the fortress, day-to-day operations are controlled from the command center. Likewise, in enterprises, servers and desktops constitute the nerve centre of routine operations. Securely managing them from a centralized location is a crucial task, which requires you to: automate the desktop management routines of enterprises to standardize and secure their Windows network protect desktops from wide range of threats quickly troubleshoot of day-to-day issues generate comprehensive reports to audit IT assets Try Desktop Central	www.desktopcentral.com
The Watch Towers  - Eventlog Analyzer & Firewall Analyzer Monitor, analyze log data and alert on internal, external security threats Watch Towers in the fortress help in observing the happenings around and protect from potential threats. In enterprises, keeping a watchful eye over the eventlog, application log and trails from perimeter security devices is essential to safeguard the organization from evolving internal and external threats and optimize performance.  This mandates: automatically collecting, analyzing, reporting, alerting and archiving event log  from distributed Windows hosts, Syslog from Unix hosts and devices & Application log from servers and databases monitoring, analyzing and reporting on logs from firewalls and other perimeter security devices troubleshooting network problems and optimize bandwidth usage & performance complete visibility on internal & external security threats meeting regulatory audit and compliance requirements Try Firewall Analyzer & Eventlog Analyzer	www.eventloganalyzer.com www.firewallanalyzer.com

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