Cybersecurity is a way to protect the e-data by mitigating the risks and vulnerabilities of your system. It is an umbrella term that covers a wide array of different activities and includes risk mitigation in cyber security. The goal is to protect your data from all potentially dangerous occurrences, such as alteration, destruction, disclosure, and unauthorized access. We can all agree that this is a complex procedure. It becomes more complex over time because of the new ways cybercriminals use to breach existing security. It becomes an important question in a world where people rely more on cyber technology than ever. Today, we want to talk about how you can mitigate the security risk in medical transcription by using encryption and firewalls.
Table of Contents
Create an Incident Response Plan
The incident response plan is a set of instructions and tools to help your team identify all the threats and find the fastest way to deal with them. In this plan, you should also have measures you can use to recover your data in situations when it has already been destroyed. An incident response or IR plan is activated immediately after the incident occurs.
In more difficult situations, you can use this to minimize financial and literal damage. Creating this plan will help protect your data from ransomware, breaches, malware, denial of service attacks, and many other dangers designed to compromise the system’s operation.
Creating this plan includes several stages.
- Identifying the critical systems
- Identifying all the potential risks
- Creating the risk handling procedures
- Defining responsibilities and rules
- Training team members
- Establishing communication guidelines
- Updating the plan frequently
All these stages are essential, and you must go through them patiently.
Advantages of Firewall for Mitigating Security Risk
We want to touch upon the advantages of using a firewall to protect your medical data for risk mitigation in cyber security.
Monitoring Traffic
The most important reason you should use a firewall to mitigate the security risk in medical transcription is to monitor the traffic. All the information that goes through the network is represented in packets. Therefore, the firewall will inspect all the packets to seek potential hazardous threats. Whenever harmful content is found, the firewall will block it immediately.
In most cases, the firewall can do the job on its own. However, when the updates are made, professionals must take care of certain aspects by paying close attention to the content inside these packs. An experienced team of professionals can seek out all the content that might put the whole system in danger.
Safeguarding from Phishing Attacks
Phishing attacks have become quite a hazard in the last couple of years. This is because there are so many websites out there that are linked with a social engineering attack like phishing. If you come across a website like that, the firewall will immediately limit access to that particular website and inform you about the dangers.
As you know, another way phishing attacks can occur is through opening emails. The firewall will analyze all the emails and point out the red flags like phishing. On the other side, most emails of this sort will not reach the inbox since the firewall will block them.
For the firewall to function as it should, you should also update the browser. Not using a firewall is dangerous since detecting phishing attacks is not the easiest task if you don’t have the software that can help. So, you can see a serious case for using a firewall.
Advantages of Encryption for Mitigating Security Risk
Now that we understand the reasons for using a firewall let’s check out the reasons for using encryption.
Prevents Regulatory Fines
Even though there are no specific requirements for data encryption, generally speaking, every medical institution must follow security measures, and safeguards must be put in place to protect patient’s privacy. In some regulations, like HIPPA from 1996, you will find that encryption is one of the main requirements.
The institution or organization responsible for the data loss can be fined if the data is not encrypted. These fines are pretty hefty. To prevent that, you must encrypt the data to protect it. Even if the loss occurs, you will not be subject to a fine if you utilize this approach.
Cheap Implementation
What many people don’t know about encryption is that it is a pretty cheap method to implement. Pretty much every system that we have today has some sort of encryption technology. The mobile phone or laptop you have just purchased will have encryption that protects the content on the storage.
So, the software you use for medical transcription comes with its in-built system. Furthermore, there are numerous encryption programs you can download for free. You can find them all over the internet. Some of them have a limit on how much of them you can use, but they are nevertheless helpful.
Summary on Mitigating Security Risk
Mitigating the security risks by using firewalls and encryption is a sure shot. These two measures are more than enough to handle your database, no matter how big. Here, we’ve discussed a couple of reasons why using these is useful.
You may contribute to the reduction of the network security risk that your business faces by following these guidelines. However, it is essential to keep in mind that no method can guarantee complete safety. There is never not a chance that you may become the victim of a cyberattack. The most effective approach to defend your company against an assault is to be well-organized, well-prepared, and in possession of a solid game plan on how to proceed in such a scenario.
If you follow these guidelines for risk mitigation in cyber security, you may assist in lowering the risk of network security faced by your firm. If you take precautions to protect and secure your network, you’ll be one step ahead of those who would do you harm.
Ananya Prisha is an enterprise level Agile coach working out of Hyderabad (India) and also founder of High Level PM Consultancy. Her goal has been to keep on learning and at the same time give back to the community that has given her so much.