Medical Data Has Become the Next Cybersecurity Target

Hackers often carry out massive cyberattacks to gain access to financial data through banks and retail companies, but the recent cybercrime hit a seemingly new target: medical data, taken from the health insurance company Premera Blue Cross. The attack affected 11 million patients, making it the largest cyberattack involving medical information to date. As Pat Calhoun, the senior vice president of network security at Intel Security, puts it, the healthcare industry is just beginning to find itself in cyber-criminals' crosshairs, making it slow to shield people's records. "The healthcare industry is not immune to attacks," he told me. "It's really a wake up call for manufacturers and healthcare providers to understand how to minimize the impact on security challenges."

Medical data is also becoming a highly lucrative target. "Financial data has always been a priority, because it's low-hanging fruit," Calhoun says. "But over the past couple of years, we've identified that medical information has a higher value on the black market than credit card information." This, he says, has more to do with what a person whose data has been accessed can do. When it comes to financial data or stolen credit cards, for example, people can take steps to cancel their cards and prevent identity theft. With medical data, no such contingency plan exists, as companies continue to figure out how to respond both quickly and efficiently to cyberattacks.