LexisNexis Survey Finds Healthcare Providers Overestimate Their Security

LexisNexis Risk Solutions has published a new report on The State of Patient Identity Management after polling more than 100 healthcare professionals about their cybersecurity practices. Carried out in collaboration with the Information Security Media Group (ISMG), the survey revealed that many healthcare providers may be overconfident about their organization’s ability to protect their patients’ information.

According to the report, the majority (58 percent) of the respondents felt that their organization had above average security. However, 93 percent of the respondents relied on username and password logins for their patient portal, with only 65 percent deploying any form of multi-factor authentication despite the growing threat of identity theft and fraud (healthcare data breaches were up five percent in 2018).  

“Multifactor authentication is considered a baseline recommendation by key cybersecurity guidelines,” said LexisNexis Market Planning Director Erin Benson. “Every access point should have several layers of defense in case one of them doesn’t catch an instance of fraud.”

The report goes on to argue that the healthcare industry’s current security standards are insufficient, and that every organization should employ some form of multi-factor authentication, whether it’s a one-time password or biometric authentication. It also suggested that a good cybersecurity strategy should be as frictionless as possible for the end user.

For its part, LexisNexis has already integrated BioCatch’s behavioral biometrics technology into its Risk Defense Platform. It later acquired ThreatMetrix and its Digital Identity Network.

–

July 11, 2019 – by Eric Weiss