Healthcare workers today face many nuanced digital risks that go beyond those of the typical internet user, especially as patient charts have migrated from clipboards to clouds. Your online presence is now being continuously connected to patient data, medical systems, and professional credentials.
Such information is often perceived as a key target by hackers. Therefore, prioritizing your online safety to protect yourself and the entire healthcare system is no longer a choice but a necessity.
Read this article to better understand why protecting yourself online as a healthcare worker is crucial. Additionally, learn how to shield yourself and everyone else at your workplace from potential hacking attempts.
The Digital Target on Healthcare Backings
Healthcare professionals are the ideal storm of digital vulnerability. You work inside intricate medical systems, utilize personal devices to check schedules, contact colleagues, and handle sensitive patient data daily. This offers many access points for hackers trying to take advantage of your rich data environment.
Recent data shows a troubling trend: over 90% of healthcare organizations in the USA experienced a cyberattack in 2024 alone. But what causes this? Medical records sell for as much as 50 times more than credit card information on dark web markets. For this reason, your access to these systems makes you a prime target – the digital equivalent of going around with keys to a vault that thieves want to break.
Beyond Patient Information: Your Individual Risk
Unfortunately, the risks go beyond stolen or damaged patient data. Healthcare professionals who suffer security violations frequently find:
- Damage to your professional reputation that can follow you throughout your career.
- Personal identity theft as attackers harvest your information and sell it on dark web marketplaces to fraudsters and identity thieves.
- Compromised home networks that endanger your entire family and friends.
For these exact reasons, consider digital security in healthcare as a fundamental practice that protects everyone involved, not just an optional precaution.
Daily Protective Practical Shields
Luckily, improving your digital security does not call for a computer science degree. Your vulnerability can be greatly reduced by using a few simple tools.
Password managers are one such tool. These managers arrange and create secure, unique passwords for every platform, system, and account you have, eliminating the dangerous practice of repeating passwords across personal and professional accounts. Importantly, installing a password manager will help you automatically fill in your credentials, combining enhanced security with convenient access to all your accounts.
Beyond improving passwords, two-factor authentication (2FA) provides a second verification process that greatly reduces account breaches. Whenever possible, enable 2FA on your accounts, preferably using biometrics or time-based one-time passwords as your authentication method.
For healthcare workers who travel between facilities or access systems remotely, eSIMs offer an additional security layer. Unlike traditional SIM cards that can be physically swapped or cloned, eSIMs are embedded digitally in your device, making them harder to compromise. They’re particularly valuable when connecting to different networks across hospital campuses or during medical conferences.
Lastly, before you log in to healthcare systems to do your job, always turn on an iOS or Android VPN. A VPN encrypts your internet traffic, preventing anyone from seeing what you are doing online.
The best VPNs on the market also provide additional security features, like a kill switch, which immediately cuts off your internet access in case your VPN connection drops. This further protects everyone’s sensitive data from being seen and leaked by unauthorized parties.
Small Investments, Big Returns
Apart from using cybersecurity tools to protect your online activities while working with healthcare systems or platforms, there are other measures you can take to protect yourself and your job from experiencing a cyberattack.
Being careful with received emails – even ones seeming to come from your company – can help to stop phishing attacks aimed particularly at healthcare workers. So, be sure to familiarize yourself with the most common social engineering attacks targeting the healthcare sector, and pass this knowledge on to your colleagues.
Dividing your business and personal digital lives lowers cross-contamination risk. If possible, the device you use to access hospital systems or patient records should not be the same one you use for your personal needs, like browsing social media or messaging your loved ones. This way, in case your personal device gets hacked, your work environment stays protected since there’s no shared device connecting them, or vice versa.
Regular software updates also close security holes that attackers actively use. So, enable automatic updates on all your work devices and platforms you use for daily operations. This will maintain your digital defenses.
The Group Shield
A single healthcare worker suffering from a sophisticated phishing attack might jeopardize whole hospital systems and possibly impact patient care throughout the institution. But if you employ the right digital security practices, you won’t be the one to cause this problem.
Protect your whole healthcare system, coworkers, patients, and yourself by employing cybersecurity tools like password managers and VPNs, educating yourself and your colleagues about possible threats targeting your sector, and being mindful of your devices’ uses and out-of-date software.
Embracing these straightforward yet effective safety measures will help you safeguard information and the confidence that underpins healthcare itself.