Tony Pepper, CEO at Egress Software:

“Today we have seen reports highlighting that a huge data breach in Singapore has resulted in the personal data of 1.5m people – a quarter of the country’s population – being stolen from a government health database.

“Given the sensitivity of the data accessed, we are once more confronted with the reality that the healthcare industry continues to be a sector increasingly vulnerable to cyber hackers. Far from being a problem consigned to Singapore, this a global issue. You only have to cast your mind back to the WannaCry attack in 2017 to understand how critically important it is for the healthcare industry in the UK to also improve its cybersecurity posture, to prevent it falling victim,” said Tony Pepper, CEO and co-founder of Egress Software Technologies.”

“Last year’s ICO report reaffirmed that the UK health sector suffered a higher number of data breach incidents between January 2013 and December 2016, accounting for 43 percent of all reported incidents in the time period. It was also interesting that human error accounted for almost half of these incidents, showing healthcare organisations are highly susceptible to both accidental and malicious breaches. Overcoming these threats requires a combination of improved employee training and the communication of risks, and the deployment of the right technologies to minimise the number of opportunities available for human error to take hold.”