2018 saw 485 significant, publicly reported breaches in the healthcare and life sciences sector. Attackers were after personally identifiable information (PII) and medical records, along with valuable pharmaceutical intellectual property.

The healthcare industry has consistently been the most targeted sector for cyberattacks over the last few years. Many organizations, especially in the provider space, are known to operate on insecure legacy IT infrastructures, which are weak from a security perspective. This problem has been compounded by the arrival of the internet of medical things (IoMT), which is connecting more devices and making them difficult to secure. As a result, cybersecurity risks are no longer confined to IT assets and data breaches; they are now directly impacting patient safety.

We surveyed 211 organizations across six industries and 27 countries for our State of Cybersecurity 2019 report—to get a thorough understanding of the current state of cybersecurity worldwide. This article focuses on the data we gathered from organizations in the healthcare and life sciences space, and highlights trends in cybersecurity throughout the industry.