By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    headphones can create health problems
    The Harmful Health Effects of Using Headphones
    September 24, 2021
    Headache causes
    4 Causes Of Headache You Probably Didn’t Know About
    December 28, 2021
    follow these steps to recover from your injury
    What Steps Should You Take to Recover More Quickly from an Injury?
    April 12, 2022
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Recognizing When You Are Enabling A Person Struggling with Addiction
    February 5, 2021
    Contraception for Techno-Doctors
    July 13, 2011
    ACP Ethics Manual on Social Media, Catastrophes, and More
    January 13, 2012
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Advanced Data Analytics and Machine Learning in Healthcare Cybersecurity
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Hospital Administration > Advanced Data Analytics and Machine Learning in Healthcare Cybersecurity
eHealthHospital AdministrationMedical RecordsTechnology

Advanced Data Analytics and Machine Learning in Healthcare Cybersecurity

andrewheikkila
andrewheikkila
Share
8 Min Read
SHARE

Cybersecurity has become a major issue in the past couple of years, with the frequency and severity of attacks on organizations around the world steadily rising. The healthcare industry made headlines and became acknowledged as a public target in early 2016 when a Hollywood hospital decided to pay $17,000 in bitcoin after hackers hit them with ransomware.

Contents
  • Cybercrime is Bad, and It Will Only Get Worse
  • Machine Learning and Analytics Solutions

Since then, it’s only gotten worse. The WannaCry virus, which hit the scene Spring of 2017 apparently infected over 220,000 computers around the world, and DDoS attacks have shut down sites and whole parts of in the internet for extended amounts of time.

Shockingly, Rejiv Leventhal writing for healthcare-informatics.com reports that 9 in 10 C-suite executives still haven’t made cybersecurity a talking point with their boards.

“For the survey, Black Book researchers polled more than 300 strategic decision makers in U.S. healthcare organizations, including both providers and payers,” writes Leventhal. “When it comes to payers, 31 percent said they have an established manager for cybersecurity programs currently, with 44 percent planning to recruit a candidate in 2018… The survey revealed that the healthcare industry continues to underestimate security threats as attackers continue to seek data and monetary gain…”

More Read

Image
High Quality, Low Cost HealthCare Video Interview Series: Lawrence Cheskin, MD, FACP Talks About TRIMM
ZipLine Medical: Surgical Wound Closure Without Stitches or Staples
mHealth Device Data to Eliminate Annual Checkup, Improve Disease Research
Digital Health and the Pharmacy: A Prescription for Success
NxThera – Vapor Ablation Therapy for BPH

Not only do healthcare administrators need to begin taking cybersecurity more seriously, they need to make sure to focus on measures that actually work. Big data and advanced analytics have proven effective technologies in healthcare already, and may just be the answer for administrator’s IT cybersecurity needs.

Cybercrime is Bad, and It Will Only Get Worse

According to Steve Morgan, writing for CSO Online, cybercrime damages are predicted to exceed $6 trillion annually by 2021, while cybersecurity spending is set to exceed $1 trillion from 2017 to 2021. What’s more, he predicts that the human attack surface will reach 6 billion people by 2022.

“As the world goes digital, humans have moved ahead of machines as the top target for cyber criminals,” he writes. “There are 3.8 billion internet users in 2017 (51 percent of the world’s population of 7 billion), up from 2 billion in 2015. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts there will be 6 billion internet users by 2022 (75 percent of the projected world population of 8 billion) — and more than 7.5 billion internet users by 2030 (90 percent of the projected world population of 8.5 million, 6 years of age and older). The hackers smell blood now, not silicon.”

This situation is exacerbated by the fact that not everybody is going to be just an “internet user,” but that they will likely be the owners of personal and medical information on the cloud. Indeed, some sources have determined that some 97 percent of patients would like healthcare organizations to have access to all of their patient records.

When you combine that reality with the fact that malware is now proliferating at a rate that most are unequipped to handle, it’s easy to see why this is becoming such a problem. Ralf Benzmüller, writing for G Data, mentions that “in 2016 every 4.6 seconds a new malware specimen emerged — in the first quarter of 2017 this only takes 4.2 seconds.”

On top of this extreme malware proliferation, it’s become apparent, based on “2017 State of Cybercrime Report” by SecureWorks, that malware is now cheaper to obtain and easier to use than ever. Malware/Hacking as a Service (MaaS/HaaS) is popular on the dark web, and the report even found that it costs as little as $10 to obtain personal records and credit card information. Lastly, the report found that, as expected, ransomware is among the worst of threats that business will have to deal with — but that social engineering and human error are major causes of breaches as well.

All of this is why the experts at Marylhurst University suggest maintaining frequent backups and performing regular internal security audits, in conjunction some of these other risk management measures:

  • Establish a core cybersecurity team who are responsible for identifying risks and establishing procedures to ensure that if an attack were to occur, it does as little damage as possible.
  • Keeping in mind the Cybersecurity Framework being drafted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, develop a plan for responding efficiently to cybersecurity attacks and investigating them to determine the source and cause of the attack.
  • Ensure that all equipment currently being used adheres to the standards set in June of 2013 by the FDA, which establishing guidelines that help keep equipment clear of malware, including deployment of intrusion detection and prevention software.
  • Network with other security officials and hospitals, constantly updating hospital policies and response procedures to keep up with the ever changing cyber security world.
  • Ensure hospital insurance coverage is updated to cover loss and potential liabilities involved with cyber security.

Unfortunately, the propensity for human error and the simple fact that a new strain of malware is born every 4.2 seconds means that even these measures simply aren’t enough. Fortunately, advanced data analytics and machine learning may provide desperately needed solutions in the face of an increasingly complex situation.

Machine Learning and Analytics Solutions

These complications mean that a new approach toward cybersecurity is needed. Experts utilizing machine learning and advanced analytics are now able to “gather, store and analyze data on the functioning of the organization’s systems,” according to Villanova University.

“This allows them to see indications of illicit activities like brute-force attacks, Distributed Denial of Service attacks or phishing,” they write. “Over time, they can become aware of the most vital warning signs and vulnerabilities for the company’s particular set of risks. For instance, monitoring user behavior may reveal anomalies in how certain individuals are working within the system.”

Essentially, new approaches to cybersecurity mean that AI systems will use analytics to establish an infrastructure baseline, and will notify administrators and professionals if ever there is a deviation from that norm. This is important, because the way normal anti-virus programs work is that they check systems against a database of established threats — but with hundreds of viruses created daily, that’s hardly effective anymore.

The future of healthcare security depends on machine learning and data analytics. Administrators and other healthcare professionals need to understand this, and that current standards won’t last for long. Patient data and safety depends on it.

TAGGED:cybersecurityHealth Datahealthcare cybersecurity
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025
physiotherapist at work
How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
Health care
August 20, 2025
Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs
7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
Health News
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

Legacy Videos By the Terminally Ill: What Does the Future Hold?

February 11, 2014

Speaking Event on Social Media: Health Tech: Next Generation Conference San Francisco

July 26, 2011
BusinesseHealthMedical DevicesMedical InnovationsTechnology

Scanadu Rocks Indiegogo For $1.1M … And Counting

July 4, 2013

Major FCC Development in HIT for Wearable Body Sensors

September 21, 2012
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?