A lot of industries heavily rely on email for\ncommunication. Since the pandemic, many businesses have allowed for indefinite\nremote work or communication between multiple locations by digital\ncommunication. Every bit of information those businesses have, from private\ncontracts to legal paperwork to patient healthcare information, is now\nsomewhere on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Companies with privacy concerns have changed\ntheir policies or created new policies for the transmission of confidential\ninformation online. The healthcare industry never has and doesn\u2019t seem to be\ninterested in adopting a universally accepted standard. This is a problem that\nhas caused serious consequences and will continue to if something doesn\u2019t\nchange. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although HIPAA laws specifically state that\nhealthcare providers are required to keep patient information confidential,\nmany providers aren\u2019t all that interested in digitally securing their\ninformation. In the year 2019, more than 70% of healthcare providers reported\nthat they were subjected to a cyberattack via email. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the overwhelming majority of healthcare\nproviders experiencing the same serious problem, it\u2019s shocking and unacceptable\nthat no industry wide standards have been adopted for keeping email communications\nsecure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A closer look at the situation by data\nreporting agencies clearly state that insiders are to blame. Healthcare workers\nopen emails with malicious attachments or fall for spoof emails, inputting\ntheir credentials and handing them over to bad actors. How can this continue to\nhappen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Email is the easiest route for launching\ncyberattacks. Ransomware attachments that appear to be ordinary and\nnonthreatening documents are opened by healthcare workers and allowed to\novertake entire systems. This compromises the entire healthcare practice, as\nwell as the personal information of every single patient they\u2019ve ever served.\nEverything is at stake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The solution is so easy that it\u2019s unacceptable\nthat so many healthcare providers have failed to implement it. It doesn\u2019t\nnecessarily require a massive system update or a laundry list of new protocols.\nSimply switching email providers and teaching everyone the basics of keeping\ninformation secure online is enough to prevent many attacks from becoming\nsuccessful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not a giant overhaul and tens of\nthousands of dollars. It\u2019s a half day\u2019s work with a little meeting, in\nconjunction with the occasional refresher course. It\u2019s something that providers\nworking with even the smallest of budgets are capable of doing, and the impact\nwill be significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emails may not be from the sender who appears\nto send them, and attachments aren\u2019t always what they seem. Screening\nattachments, or better still, screening the sender, and never opening\nattachments if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing or who it\u2019s from, is the\neasiest way to avoid making a mistake. Companies should create internal communication\nrules for employees that prevent opening email from anyone outside of an\ninternal contact list. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you switch to a secure encrypted email\nprovider to centralize all conversations and employee accounts, it\u2019s a lot more\ndifficult for uninformed employees to make a mistake. Your healthcare practice\nneeded encryption 20 years ago. It needs it even more with each passing moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t need to be a tech genius to use\nPrivateMail or to understand how it works. The process is simple. Give each\nemployee their own PrivateMail account through your admin controlled business\naccount, and use PrivateMail exclusively for all healthcare practice related\ncommunications. With built in domain and logo white labling the process will be\ntransparent to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n