Healthcare Ransomware Attacks Involve 20% of Stored Sensitive Data
Ransomware groups target the healthcare sector because a successful attack gives them access to large amounts of sensitive data that can be easily monetized and used as leverage to get a ransom paid. Healthcare organizations are also heavily reliant on access to data to operate, therefore there is a higher probability that a ransom will be paid to regain access to encrypted data. Attacks on the sector are also increasing. According to Recorded Future, there were 358 ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 46%.
A recent study by the cybersecurity firm Rubrik assessed the impact of ransomware attacks and found that attacks on healthcare providers impact more data than other industry sectors. Researchers at Rubrik Zero Labs determined that 20% of a healthcare organization’s sensitive data holdings are affected by a ransomware encryption event, compared to 6% in other industry sectors. That means 20% of healthcare data is encrypted, deleted, or stolen in an attack.
Healthcare organizations generally hold more sensitive data than other industry sectors. According to Rubrik’s analysis, healthcare organizations typically need to secure 50% more data than the global average, with healthcare organizations holding an average of 42 million sensitive data records compared to the global average of 28 million sensitive records. The amount of data stored grows at a faster rate than other industries. In 2023, a typical healthcare organization saw its data estate grow by 27% compared to 23% for a typical global organization, and the number of sensitive data records in healthcare grew by 63% in the past year compared to the global average of 13%.
The data for Rubrik’s report – The State of Data Security: Measuring Your Data’s Risk – came from telemetry across the company’s customer base of 6,100 organizations and a study conducted by the Wakefield Research of more than 1,600 IT and security leaders. Across all industry sectors, 94% of IT security leaders said they had experienced a significant cyberattack in 2023, and an average of 30 attacks in the past year. One-third of IT security leaders said they had been affected by at least one ransomware attack, and 93% of organizations paid a ransom, with 58% of those paying to prevent the leaking of stolen data.
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Dependence on the cloud is growing, with cloud architecture used to store 13 % of an organization’s data on average, compared to 9% the previous year. According to Rubrik’s telemetry, cloud storage has inherent risks as there are security blind spots. Rubrik reports that 70% of all cloud-stored data is in object storage, which typically has much lower security coverage than other areas. 88% of all data stored in object storage is not confirmed as machine-readable or is not covered by prominent security technologies and services, and more than 25% of object storage data is subject to regulatory or legal requirements, such as HIPAA.
“Despite the fallout of cyberattacks dominating headlines, data risk is an issue that continues to be murky — especially in terms of what security teams can actually change and what they cannot,” said Steven Stone, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs. “With this report, we aim to provide quantifiable insights that IT and security leaders can bring back to their organization to drive greater cyber resilience-in particular with their partners in the business and governance teams.”
