Aged-care services are a gold mine of health records and sensitive personal data, and the industry is considered a serious target for cyberattacks.
Yet, as growing concern of cyber threats in the aged-care sector increases, preparedness against these is disturbingly low.
In a sector which is growing faster than GDP, thanks to our rapidly ageing population, we can expect cyber vulnerabilities to grow.
Perhaps unbeknown to the average law-abiding citizen, health records sell for far more on the dark web than credit card details.
Australia has already witnessed several data breaches in the aged-care sector, including data loss, data breach and infiltrated computer systems, putting a sector worth $22.2 billion to the Australian economy at great risk.
Of all 114 data breaches recorded in 2017, a third of these involved health information, and health service providers and charities were among the top five sectors affected by such breaches.
In fact, Aon’s 2017 Global Risk Management Survey shows 45 per cent of healthcare industry professionals predicted cyber to be one of the top five emerging risks in 2020.
The aged-care industry is made up of 1800 services and the big majority push a…
