CHS breach a sign of healthcare's security illness

Community Health Systems announced Aug. 18 that hackers had breached its health care network of 206 facilities and stolen sensitive information on approximately 4.5 million patients. The compromise and subsequent data loss is part of a general trend in the sector. The health care industry has given short shrift to IT security, spending less on protecting its systems and data than most, if not all other, industries, as measured as a percentage of the overall IT budget. And data from firms that track threat intelligence shows that signs of breaches are rampant in the health care industry.