ThinAir, a security startup whose mission is to allow organizations to detect and investigate insider threats in seconds, has launched a new interface and impact assessment tool, ThinAir 2.0 – a conversational interface that allows for quick assessments of security incidents and their financial impact. The new tool – which the developer describes as “siri for Security” is among a number of new security technologies being introduced to help combat the data security breach epidemic.
It seems every time we turn on the news these past few years, there are reports of yet another massive data breach or identity theft story. According to research from the Identity
Theft Resource Center (TRC) and CyberScout, healthcare data accounted for more than 34% of reported breaches in 2016. As one technology makes it harder for fraud to occur (i.e. the introduction of micro-chipped credit cards to the US in 2015), criminals focus on other avenues to commit fraud. Unfortunately, criminals aren’t the only ones causing these breaches; according to the same report, employee error or negligence was the leading cause for healthcare data breaches in 2016, with 43 reported incidents exposing 1,183,893 records. Aside from employee error, 3rd party businesses, associates and subcontractors also exposed 4 million records in 2016. Hacking and cyber-attacks aside, basic misuse of customer service login information, privilege misuse (abuse of privilege to access data for illegitimate purposes), and miscellaneous errors such as losing a physical folder of documents, or sending an email to an incorrect address, are among the most common reasons healthcare data is breached. As a matter of fact, the healthcare industry is the only industry where employees are the predominant cause of data breaches.*
While these statistics are alarming, there are steps healthcare institutions and practices can take to head off these breaches: making sure antivirus and operating systems are up to date, using encryptions and secure passwords, and making sure cloud based systems are paired with reputable and high-level security. Ongoing assessment and monitoring proves useful when unforeseen circumstances do cause a breach, and make it easy to investigate quickly and take action.
That’s where products like ThinAir 2.0 come into play, where quick access is critical when handling healthcare data. Quickly detecting and containing breaches lowers risk, and ultimately cost. “As information becomes the primary asset for today’s organizations, ThinAir’s technology provides visibility and impact assessment,” said Tony Gauda, founder and CEO of ThinAir. “We turn analysts into superheroes by surfacing all user-information interactions, with simplicity and speed.” ThinAir is HIPAA, and SOC-2 (Type 2) compliant as well as ITAT/EAR compliant, is authorized to manage sensitive data for a variety of industries and can help organizations achieve compliance.
Data breaches can significantly damage a healthcare organization’s reputation and result in loss of trust, or worse, patients entirely. Making sure to have proactive and secure processes, assessment, monitoring and investigative tools seems like a better plan.
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*source: Verizon 2017 Data Breach Investigation Report