Unauthorized device use and data leakage top health IT security threats

Unsanctioned device use and data leakage issues are major IT security threats affecting the healthcare sector. These are more prevalent than phishing and targeted attacks, according to an IDG Connect survey sponsored by ForeScout.

This finding was part of a survey of about 1,600 senior IT security and technology purchase decision makers (22 percent from the healthcare sector) located in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the U.S. The results were collected and analyzed from April to May 2014.

Of all respondents, 98 percent reported significant security incidents within the past 12 months and 39 percent experienced on average more than two significant security eventsduring this time frame. Forty percent of all companies find security management more difficult now than two years ago, according to the survey.

In the healthcare sector:

  • Breaches caused by unsanctioned device and application use were particular problems, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
  • Integrating mobile device management was considered to hold the greatest benefits in curbing security threats.
  • Data leakage monitoring issues was considered an issue with the greatest impact across the globe.
  • Leaders revealed themselves to be even more immature in personal mobile device security and endpoint compliance discovery and remediation compared to the cross industry aggregate.

Learn more about the report here.

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