Cyberattacks targeting health care industry amid coronavirus pandemic, cost trillions of dollars in last 2 years

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$1.8 trillion price tag for US cyberattacks over the past two years

Relentless cyberattacks against organizations across the United States have cost over $1.8 trillion and exposed more than 7.8 billion consumer records over the last two years, according to ForgeRock’s 2020 Consumer Identity Breach Report. A look at why unauthorized access attacks are so costly and dangerous for consumers.

Relentless cyberattacks against organizations across the United States have cost over $1.8 trillion and exposed more than 7.8 billion consumer records over the last two years, according to ForgeRock’s 2020 Consumer Identity Breach Report.

Eve Maler is a 20-year veteran of the identity industry and is the chief technology officer at ForgeRock. In an interview with Fox News, she explained that the main form of cyberattack (40 percent of the data breaches last year) takes place as so-called unauthorized access attacks.

“Unauthorized access means that cybercriminals were actually getting into people's online accounts using previously stolen usernames and passwords or possibly other personal data about them,” said Maler.

She underscored that the health care industry was the most hard hit, with 45 percent of attacks occurring in the sector in 2019. Unfortunately, Maler said that the health care records of Americans are still vulnerable as ever in 2020.

“The data is unfortunately getting worse for the first quarter of 2020, and the health care industry is once again a big target,” said Maler. “Over 50 percent of the data breaches so far in 2020 have been for the health care industry.”

The new data can be troubling, Maler explained, especially due to the increased demand for telemedicine and remote care amid the coronavirus pandemic. The cybersecurity expert noted that hackers typically take personally identifiable information (PII) during a cyberattack, like health care records.

“Health care records are so attractive to cyber criminals because, if you think about it, it's physical data,” said Maler. “It's digital data. It's data about your body. It's data about where you live. It's your date of birth — very valuable information.”

Thankfully, however, Maler said there are measures consumers can implement to protect their information, including second-factor verification. That means providing a password and proving your identity in an alternate way to gain usage to data. Maler advised consumers to not only increase their usage of second-factor authentication, but also to look for providers who offer the opportunity to use multifactor authentication.

“In this time of the coronavirus and people starting new relationships with new service providers because they've been doing new things from home, look at it as an opportunity to shore up your strength and methods of protection,” said Maler. “You can turn over a new leaf and make sure that you turn on these new, stronger methods of protection and look for ways of doing it in a convenient fashion with server service providers that you trust.”

For more on how Americans can protect their data, watch the full interview with ForgeRock’s Eve Maler above.

Emily DeCiccio is a reporter and video producer for Fox News Digital Originals. Tweet her @EmilyDeCiccio.