How MSPs Can Capitalize on the Modernization of Healthcare IT

What makes the perfect target for a cybercriminal? A business that’s rich with sensitive information about their clients. One in particular? Healthcare providers. Consider just how much information a facility like a hospital holds concerning its doctors, nurses, and patients. Many of these stored details, especially patient files, are not only sensitive in nature but life-saving or threatening if withheld from healthcare professionals delivering treatment. Needless to say, this data should be properly protected and backed up for easy restoration in case of a cyberattack.Cybercriminals Breached the NHSUnfortunately, many hospitals and other healthcare facilities are lacking in up-to-date data security technology. Cybercriminals know this and easily exploit these vulnerabilities. One major example is the WannaCry ransomware attack from 2017. According to the Telegraph, the National Health Service in Britain suffered a loss of £92 million, with 19,000 appointments cancelled in one week because of WannaCry. These numbers are staggering. They emphasize the massive problem with outdated IT and data security technologies in the healthcare industry.Data Security Opportunities for MSPsThere are a few opportunities for your MSP in the healthcare space when it comes to data security:

• Demonstrate to clients, with real-life examples like WannaCry, how important it is to lock down their healthcare management systems with firewalls and anti-virus protection. Plus, ensure all their passwords are in order.
• Offer off-site data backups to more than just one location, providing protection from both cybercrime and natural disasters. Or, leverage an existing disaster recovery cloud like StorageCraft’s.
• The 2017 State of Privacy & Security Awareness report says that healthcare workers show significantly less knowledge about cybersecurity best practices than the general population. Therefore, distributing proper data security education to employees could also prove to be a helpful and lucrative opportunity.

Another Way to Help Out & Cash InBig data in healthcare presents a huge hurdle for providers. If it’s stored and harnessed correctly, though, it can be a valuable asset to medical researchers and sales reps alike. If your MSP specializes in data sorting and storage, many healthcare providers could use your expertise. The future of data storage and security seems to lie in the hands of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Both are used to uncover superior methods of sorting data and collecting the right information to better business practices. Get this on lock, and you’ll have a lock on the healthcare data goldmine. StorageCraft is the data recovery pro. We help SMBs and MSPs with data security by offering reliable, easy-to-use solutions for data backups and recovery in case of cybercrime and natural disasters. Contact us today to see what we can do for your MSP, or request a free demo to see our products in action.