A majority of healthcare executives said their organizations were compromised by at least one malware, botnet or cyberattack in the last two years, according to a 2015 KPMG Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey.
The survey received information from 223 CIOs, CTOs,, chief security officers and chief compliance officers at healthcare providers and health plans.
Here are five things to know:
1. Half of the healthcare executives surveyed reported they were prepared to prevent attacks.
2. KPMG found that the rate of attacks is increasing, with 13 percent of executives reporting an external hack attempt occurring once a day and 12 percent experiencing two or more a week.
3. Sixteen percent of these executives said they do not know in real-time if their systems are hacked.
4. The most common attacker of the last two years is malware, based on responses from 65 percent of executives.
5. External attackers (65 percent), sharing data with third parties (48 percent), employee breaches (35 percent), wireless computing (35 percent) and insufficient firewalls (27 percent) cause the most havoc for healthcare organizations.
"The vulnerability of patient data at the nation's health plans an approximately 5,000 hospitals is on the rise, and healthcare executives are struggling to safeguard patient records," said Michael Ebert, head of KPMG's healthcare & life sciences cyber practice. "Patient records are far more valuable than credit card information for people who plan to commit fraud."
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