Cybercrime and Insider Threats in Healthcare Organizations

Abstract

Cybercrime costs an estimated $575 billion per year and healthcare continues to be the most targeted sector in the world. News headlines are rife with data leaks and data breach incidents. These breaches lead to the theft of personal, financial, and health information from users who are often only notified of the breach well after it occurred, and the damage has already been done. Insider threats can be loosely categorized as malicious or negligent, based on their intent (or lack thereof). This case study focuses on one such malicious incident where a ring of hospital employees was indicted for allegedly selling patient credit card and medical information online. The authors provide practitioners with a deeper understanding of how PII is misused, motivations for its theft, and recommendations to avoid such incidents in their own organizations.