With IT security trending in the news, two of the biggest industries that seem to be top of mind are finance and media. These sectors have big budgets and very public personalities, so they tend to hog the spotlight. However, one of the hardest hit industries has actually been health care. Identity governance and intelligence may be the solution for its ailing cybersecurity.

A New Kind of Health Care Crisis

Health care organizations have lots of personal patient data, including names, health information, payment information, Social Security numbers and more. Electronic medical record (EMR) systems such as EPIC or McKesson are popular targets since they have such valuable data. Because of this, health care security teams are looking for new methods to remain secure and compliant, all while protecting that patient data.

According to the Ponemon Institute, criminal attacks in health care have increased by 125 percent since 2010 and are now the leading cause of medical data breaches. These attacks can also include the work of malicious insiders.

The people within these organizations have been the main entry points into the systems, which could allow cybercriminals to collect valuable personal information. Doctors, nurses, patients and their identities need to be managed and governed.

Securing these entry points is not only a requirement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, but it’s also a business imperative. Fines for noncompliance can reach $1.5 million or more.

To combat these threats and remain compliant, health care organizations are looking to identity and access management (IAM) solutions. These tools can help:

• Automate processes for managing user roles, access policies and risk.
• Apply and enforce appropriate levels of access for a constantly changing user base.
• Regularly recertify user access rights with a high level of accuracy.
• Detect and act upon security policy violations quickly.

Identity Governance Saves the Day

IBM Identity Governance and Intelligence is an end-to-end solution that helps improve health care security measures at the critical identity gateway while also reducing overall complexity and total cost of ownership. Governance and intelligence assists organizations in mitigating access risks and access policy violations by using intelligence-driven, business-driven identity governance integrated with user life cycle management.

Interactive white paper: Safeguard Health Care Identities and Data Against the Latest Threats

For even more information, watch the on-demand health care identity governance webinar. There, IBM experts discuss a real customer use case where IBM was able to integrate its identity solutions with a hospital’s EPIC system, and give a demonstration of the solution.