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Study: Healthcare Organizations Are Top Targets for Hackers – 68% Have Compromised Email Credentials

8 Mar, 2017
Evolve IP LogoEvolve IP and ID Agent Shed Light on the Dark Web and How Healthcare IT Leaders Can Survive in the World of Email-Based Attacks WAYNE, Pa.—March 8, 2017 - Evolve IP, The Cloud Services Company™, today released the results of a study of Dark Web email vulnerabilities in the healthcare industry. The research, conducted in a collaboration between Evolve IP and ID Agent, reveals the pervasive nature of email-based cybersecurity attacks and sheds light on the quantity, variety, sources and consistent growth of these threats. Healthcare IT leaders place a high priority on preventing breaches, but despite their best efforts, hackers often break through the organization’s weakest link - end user email credentials. The study, which included an analysis of 1,000 healthcare organizations, illustrates the need for proactive threat monitoring coupled with near real-time disaster recovery solutions to prevent employee email liabilities from becoming major catastrophes. Amongst other findings the landmark study uncovered:
  • 68 percent of the healthcare organizations analyzed have compromised email credentials as identified by ID Agent’s Dark Web ID analysis. Nearly 80 percent of the positive data set includes actionable password information, simplifying hackers’ efforts to infiltrate the network.
  • An estimated 7,500 individual incidents occurred across the study where healthcare companies had email credentials compromised due to phishing or key logging attacks. Any one of these vulnerabilities could rapidly escalate to ransomware, denial of service attacks or PHI breaches across an entire enterprise.
  • 23% of the passwords stolen were available for sale or trade on the Dark Web as unencrypted, clearly visible text. While the remainder of passwords were encrypted, the level of encryption used presents no real hurdle to professional hackers that want to crack them.
Kevin Lancaster, CEO of ID Agent, highlighted the overall scope of the compromised email credential issue. “With 68% of healthcare organizations having compromised credentials within the Dark Web, organizations are failing to adequately protect customers from on-line account takeover and data exploit. To combat the growing threat, the need to develop an end-to-end solution to automate the process of identifying stolen credentials and proactively securing customer on-line accounts, is vital. “While it is virtually impossible to prevent phishing attacks, the right disaster recovery plan and DR services can prevent a healthcare organization from experiencing serious losses or even potentially going out of business,” said David M. McCrystal, Healthcare Program Manager, Evolve IP. “In our experience, the keys to surviving a breach involve rapid incident response and implementing a disaster recovery service that has near real-time recovery points and recovery times.” Evolve IP is a leading provider of HIPAA-compliant, HITRUST-audited cloud and hybrid cloud services including a complete suite of DRaaS solutions that range from backup to replication to fully managed, white-glove DRaaS. Recognized by leading analysts for its unique recovery options, over 200 healthcare clients across the United States rely on Evolve IP for cloud services. Please click here for more information about Evolve IP’s award winning healthcare services. The full report is available for download here . ABOUT EVOLVE IP Evolve IP is The Cloud Services Company™. Designed from the beginning to provide organizations with a unified option for cloud services, Evolve IP enables decision-makers to migrate all or select IT technologies to its award-winning cloud platform. Evolve IP's combination of security, stability, scalability, and lower total cost of ownership is fundamentally superior to outdated legacy systems and other cloud offerings. Today the company’s services, including disaster recovery, contact centers , virtual servers, virtual desktops, IP phone systems / unified communications, and more, are deployed by more than 1,300 commercial business accounts with a combined 130,000+ users, licensed seats and managed end points.  Visit www.EvolveIP.net for more information. About ID AGENT/DARK WEB ID The largest private and public sector organizations globally rely on Dark Web ID to provide actionable stolen credential data to make informed decisions. Dark Web ID combines human intelligence with sophisticated Dark Web intelligence and search capabilities to identify, analyze and proactively monitor for your organization’s compromised or stolen employee and customer data.
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