According to the HIPAA Journal, healthcare data breaches hit an all-time high in 2023, with over 133 million patient records breached. That’s more than double the total recorded in 2022. Accelerated by the transition from in-person to virtual care during the COVID-19 pandemic, clinical trials are especially vulnerable to cyber-attacks due to the quantities of sensitive medical information they collect from patients, with the storage of data in the cloud significantly increasing the potential attack surface.
The speed of this transition has meant that many sponsors and CROs (contract research organisations) have struggled to keep pace, often lacking adequate cybersecurity defenses or robust procedures in case of a breach. If hackers exploit such vulnerabilities, this can have disastrous consequences for a clinical trial’s progress, resulting in increased disruption and costs, all of which ultimately come at a price to the patients depending on the development of new clinical treatments.
But the tables are turning. GlobalData forecasts that cybersecurity spending by pharma and healthcare providers and payors will reach a total of $9.77 billion by 2025, impacted no doubt by the growing volume of data collected in clinical trials as Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments (eCOA) and Electronic Consent forms (eConsent) become the industry standard.
Source: Verdict