At Emerald Coast Medical Association our members are our top priority. Data breaches have become very common, putting patients at risk for their information to be accessed by hackers. We offer Cyber Liability Insurance to our members to help save them from the issues that can arise from data breaches.
It is recommended that IT staff closely monitor and identify all remote access points, and also that only trusted individuals have access to the systems. It is also essential to have a strong password policy as an added protector. Emerald Coast Medical Association is taking these recommendations a step further with our Cyber Liability Insurance.
The healthcare industry suffers from 51 percent of all data breaches. This statistic is reason enough to consider signing up for our cyber liability insurance. Attackers can copy or alter yours and your practices private information. They can also use this against you by demanding a ransom in order to for you to gain access again. These attacks can be dire not only for your practice but also for your patients.
Once an attacker gains access to a system, they can move to other connected devices or systems, stealing data and rendering the systems unusable. They can also hijack computer resources to generate cryptocurrency. Most hijacks also happen in practices with less than 100 employees, which we know is the case for many of our members.
There have been instances where thousands of patients medical records were posted online for all of the world to be able to access. The ensuing outcome was a lawsuit filed for $10 million. Another incident was when a woman bought a used computer from a pharmacy. The computer had not been wiped clean, and she gained access to thousands of patients prescription information, including their names, addresses, and social security numbers. It cost $110,000 alone just to notify the affected parties, not taking the two lawsuits filed into account.
With cyber security threats continuing to top the list of top IT hazards facing providers, we cannot help but to stress the importance of having cyber liability insurance. We care about our members and want to do everything we can to keep them worry-free. We are happy to say that our members can rest easy knowing that they are safe with us and can focus their attention on the reason for the job, the patients.
If you would like to know more about our Cyber Liability Insurance, please click the link below.