Introduction
Over the last several years the healthcare sector of the USA has witnessed a considerable amount of data breach cases. One such attack took place in March 2019 and compromised data of more than 277,000 ZOLL Services customers due to an error during the server migration (Davis, 2019). The data included medical information, birth dates, and other communications. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what significant concept the organization should have taken into consideration in order to avoid the data breach.
The Possible Reasons for the Attack
It is possible to note that ZOLL Services, a vendor of medical devices, works with a large amount of its customers’ data, including their personal information. Moreover, one of the tasks of the company is to maintain the information provided (Davis, 2019). This kind of communication might play a significant part in the work of the whole company. It can also affect the reputation and financial condition of the organization. At the same time, dealing with large quantities of personal and medical information might be not an easy matter. According to Cheng, Liu, and Yao (2017), “it is challenging for companies to protect data against information leakage in the era of big data” (p. 2). So, it is obvious, that, in spite of the fact that ZOLL Services pays a considerable amount of attention to security, it has missed an important factor.
In order to find out the problem that has led to ZOLL Services becoming a victim of fraud, it is necessary to give consideration to the performance of a safety structure. A data security system is a complex scheme that encompasses many parts. An error can occur in each of them at any time. Taking into account the opportunities to use stolen information in fraudulent ways, given by the internet, counter-moves are required as soon as possible. Based on the assumption of these facts, it is important for a company to manage control over the data security system efficiently. As it is described by McLaughlin and Olson (2017), “a response procedure or plan should be developed to address situations in which a process fails to perform as it should” (p. 396). So, it is possible to note that ZOLL Services did not manage to create an efficient and rapid breach response mechanism and embody the concept of control in a proper way. The lack of control eventually led to the fraudulent use of the customers’ data.
The Means to Tackle the Problem
The ways to strengthen control and avoid such situations, as the one that ZOLL Services has found itself in, may vary from company to company. They depend on the area of activity of an organization. However, an important step for companies of all working fields is to qualify the case after having detected malicious activity. Researches note that they should investigate the case according to the scope and areas affected (Fowler, 2016). Taking such measures might help to prevent future cases of fraudulent attacks.
Conclusion
To sum up, it might be significant to note that today cybersecurity is an important matter for the USA, especially for the healthcare sector of the country. Recently it has seen an anxiously big number of phishing attacks on medical and healthcare organizations. Companies dealing with healthcare fell victim to such cases of fraudulent activity. Speaking of the case of ZOLL Services, it might be concluded that the attack was possible due to their poor control system. Nowadays, different ways to tackle the problem of cyber-attacks are suggested by researches. Hopefully, the company will use it to avoid similar situations in the future.
References
Cheng, L., Liu, F., & Yao, D. (2017). Enterprise data breach: Causes, challenges, prevention, and future directions. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 7(5), 1-14.
Davis, J. (2019). The 10 biggest healthcare data breaches of 2019, so far. Web.
Fowler, K. (2016). Data breach preparation and response: Breaches are certain, impact is not. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
McLaughlin, D., & Olson, J. (2017). Healthcare operations management 3rd ed. Chicago: Health Administration Press.