Healthcare data is 50 times more valuable on the black market than credit card data exposes information such as a person’s height, eye color and other physical characteristics, which can
Emerging cyber threats
From 2012-2013, HIPAA data breaches rose 138 percent, with medical-related identity theft accounting for 43 percent of all identity thefts reported in the U.S. in 2013.
Medical-device manufacturers are being singled out as the primary target in 2014. The reason for all this unwanted attention is simple: healthcare data is approximately 50 times more valuable on the black market than credit card data because it exposes information such as a person’s height, eye color and other physical characteristics, which can be used to create comprehensive fake identities Healthcare security systems, however, are lagging compared to other industries in addressing this problem.