How to Surcharge Responsibly: A Guide for Health Providers
Cyber security threats are constantly evolving and increasingly targeted at the health sector. These easy-to-implement measures can help protect your practice.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) reports that the health sector accounted for 22% of all data breaches in the last half of 2023.
Protecting your practice from cyber attacks or data breaches is crucial. Here’s a guide to securing your practice’s data and systems.
Know how your data is managed
Safe and secure systems start with having clear process in place for how a practice manages and gives access to data. It’s vitally important that you understand where your data is being stored, how it’s backed up, and who has access to it.
Make sure you only provide access to essential team members and external vendors, and carefully limit access to personal information to only when needed. Periodically review access to make sure only authorised team members and external vendors have access.
Make the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA) mandatory, ensuring that even if login credentials are compromised, unauthorised access is still prevented.
Be proactive in how you assess risk
Regular risk assessments help identify vulnerabilities within your practice’s IT infrastructure. Evaluate your systems, software, and data storage methods to uncover weak points that could be exploited by cyber criminals. Taking a proactive approach enables you to address potential issues before they can be used in an attack.
Data security is everyone’s responsibility
Mistakes happen. We get it. But when human error is one of the leading causes of security breaches, it’s important to take every measure to minimise the risk. As a team, work together to learn how to identify and understand the vulnerabilities in your practice to reduce the likelihood of unintentional data breaches.
Offer training and procedures to help your staff identify suspicious emails and avoid unsafe downloads. And encourage a culture of speaking up when something doesn’t feel right – no matter how small it may seem at the time.
Invest in, and maintain your practice software
If you don’t already, invest in robust cyber security solutions, including firewalls, antivirus software, and intrusion detection systems. Ensure these tools are regularly updated to protect against the latest threats.
Cyber criminals are known to exploit vulnerabilities in outdated software and systems. Regularly update and patch your software, operating systems, and applications to protect against these threats. To make life easier, implement automatic updates to help ensure that your systems are always up to date.
Have an incident management plan
Make sure you and your team have clear and easy-to-follow guidelines on how to respond to a cyber incident. Having a well-defined incident response plan is crucial for minimising the damage caused by a cyber attack.
Know your responsibilities
Read up on your responsibilities when it comes to the management of personal information, as outlined in the Privacy Act and the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. Obligations include having to notify individuals when their personal information is involved in a data breach that is likely to result in serious harm.
Cyber crime is evolving, and it can be hard to know where to begin when it comes to protecting your practice. That said, by educating yourself and your team, having a plan, knowing where to go for additional support and resources, you’ll give yourself the best chance at keeping your patients, staff and practice safe.
At Tyro Health we take the security of our platform and products with the utmost priority. Our dedicated team of experts continually innovates our fraud and security protection mechanisms.
Want to know more about how we keep our solutions cyber safe?
Visit our Security page for Tyro Health and Tyro
Looking for best practices for keeping your Tyro Health Online account and data secure? Read this guide.
Other resources:
Essentials Eight mitigation strategies – cyber.gov.au
Cyber security checklist — business.gov.au
Top cyber security tips for businesses — Australian Tax Office (ATO)
Cyber security for healthcare businesses — digitalhealth.gov.au
