How Healthcare Organizations Use AI to Improve Healthcare Data Security

As cybersecurity threats to healthcare grow in number and severity, artificial intelligence is helping providers detect vulnerabilities and respond to data breaches faster and with greater precision.

Given that 63 percent of organizations of all types don’t have enough staff to monitor threats 24/7, according to a 2019 Ponemon report, the added defense is crucial. It’s arguably even more important for the healthcare industry, whose data is often considered more valuable than Social Security and credit card numbers.

As a healthcare tool, AI can help predict falls in seniors and identify early signs of sepsis. It’s also poised to shape many other facets, from disease detection to administrative tasks. As an IT defense mechanism, however, AI may be employed to recognize network behaviors unlikely to represent human action, keep watch for fraud threats and predict malware infections based on previously identified characteristics.

Such intuitive IT capacities offer “preventative medicine, helping prevent the infection in the first place,” says Rob Bathurst, an adviser for anti-virus software firm Cylance, in a recent white paper about AI and healthcare infrastructure.