Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
Latest Comment: Yeah, so Dave said something about "a faster way to the top", next thing I know there's tthis ladder...
IT 2020: A Look AheadAre you ready for the critical changes that will occur in 2020? We've compiled editor insights from the best of our network (Dark Reading, Data Center Knowledge, InformationWeek, ITPro Today and Network Computing) to deliver to you a look at the trends, technologies, and threats that are emerging in the coming year. Download it today!
How Enterprises are Attacking the Cybersecurity Problem
Organizations have invested in a sweeping array of security technologies to address challenges associated with the growing number of cybersecurity attacks. However, the complexity involved in managing these technologies is emerging as a major problem. Read this report to find out what your peers biggest security challenges are and the technologies they are using to address them.
Tweet This
7 Comments
User Rank: Apprentice
9/25/2015 | 12:30:51 PM
I think that healthcare is unique in that there are a greater number of people who come in contact with sensitive information during the course of normal business operations than in other industries.
So, when you combine the number of people involved with handling multiple forms of PHI records, along with the immaturity of the data security systems and practices that are in place, there are so many opportunities for mistakes or
intentional breaches to take place.
The attraction of PHI is that its value does not degrade as rapidly as credit card data, which can be changed or updated quickly.
I recently read a study from Aberdeen Group that revealed "a steady increase in enterprise use of tokenization as an alternative to encryption for protecting sensitive data" and that half of the organizations are using data tokenization
for PII and PHI data. The name of the study is "Tokenization Gets Traction".
This is a short list of effective measures that I suggest organizations should take:
1. Fine-grained de-identification of both PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and PHI.
2. Fine-grained tokenization of PHI, to alleviate the need for plain-text data and exposure in-memory across the entire data flow.
3. Strong credentials, including password improvement and rotation, plus separation of duties to prevent privileged users, such as database administrators or system administrators, from accessing sensitive data.
Secure the data to the point that it is useless to a potential thief. Modern solutions such as tokenization provide better security than encryption, while retaining usability for analytics and monetization.
Ulf Mattsson, CTO Protegrity