The number of successful attacks targeting the healthcare sector has doubled in the past four years. Worldwide, the vast majority of victims (83%) are based in the Americas. Attacks almost 100% attributable to cybercrime, with a slight increase in the percentage of attacks due to hacktivism, i.e. demonstrative actions, in the first quarter of 2023. These are some data from an update of the Clusit Report, focused on healthcare and updated to the first quarter 2023.
“In recent years, the healthcare sector has accounted for approximately 10% to 12% of attacks, but it rose to 17% in the first quarter of 2023, confirming itself as not only the sector most affected, but also in a situation that continues to worsen“. experts point out. Worldwide, the vast majority of victims (83%) are based in the Americas, followed by 10% based in Europe. America’s incidence is particularly high in this sector, much more than the average of attacks, which stands at 38%; this difference may be linked to the attackers’ interest in the sector as a result of the value of the data to be resold.
According to Clusit, the severity of the impact of accidents is lower than average, with 71% of accidents “serious” or “critical” compared to 80% of the global sample. “However, if we take into account the fact that healthcare represents the most affected sector, the overall impact is in any case extremely high”, observe the experts, adding that “the social consequences of the interruption of services in this area, or of the spread of information on the state of health of citizens, are particularly relevant”. Overall, these numbers, they conclude, “speak to us of a difficulty in protecting one’s information system in a sector that in recent years has been forced to rapidly digitize and has been put under pressure by the pandemic. Unfortunately, they also tell us that the situation it’s not getting better.”
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