Where could a cybercriminal penetrate your practice? What assets would they hit? What systems would they breach?

The term “attack surface” can be defined as all of your IT assets, whether they are secure or vulnerable, you’re aware of them or not, they’re on-site or in the cloud, third-party or your own.

Healthcare organizations are aggressively changing out expensive, outdated systems in favor of more flexible cloud-based applications. It just makes good business sense. Often, you get a far better product at a fraction of the price. And because you’re partnering with a third-party service, you don’t have the same stringent security issues you once faced when everything was in-house.

Successful organizations share a common trait of being successful planners and strategizers. Management and employees alike all share a common goal and know what it takes to get there.

Of course, you can’t have a successful organization without great customer service.

How many people in your practice take work home with them? How many of them work remotely, at least part of the time?

This probably comes as no surprise to you, but the way people are working is changing … a lot. According to Global Workplace Analytics:

The work-at-home environment has grown by 173 percent since 2005
4.7 million employees work from home at least half of the time
40 percent of US employers offer flexible workplace options

That might be where we stand today, but the same study suggests that the work-at-home environment is going to continue to increase at breakneck speed:

50 percent of the US workforce currently have jobs that can be performed at least partially remotely
80 to 90 percent of US workforce would like to work remotely, at least part of the time

Security is hard enough when everyone is in the same working environment.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about as consumers, medical identity theft is on the rise. The smarter we as individuals get about protecting our own security, the more tools cybercriminals use to capture the data they want. It’s a game of cat and mouse that we’ll invariably keep playing for the foreseeable future.

You know those never-ending questions that people ask over and over again? The ones that make your days monotonous at best? You might be able to fix them with help desk technology.

A help desk system automates the workflow of resolving issues, centralizing information, and keeping everyone in-the-know.

With so many programs, systems, and devices on the marketplace today, where do you start when you want to run an efficient, automated practice? Cloud-first adoption is more popular than ever.

Cloud-first strategies are a set of business practices that aim to utilize cloud-based products whenever possible.

According to the Information Systems and Control Association (ISACA), security culture is defined as:

"a pattern of behaviors, beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and ways of doing things around the information security within an organization."

It impacts an organization’s knowledge base and perspective about the way they make decisions on everything:

Your BYOD (bring your own device) policy
Your patch policy
Your hiring policy for the IT department
Your purchasing policy for updating systems and technology

What does your security policy say about you?

The real purpose of creating a security culture

Why should you concern yourself with increasing security culture in your practice? Common sense says it’s to make technology more secure.

Think for a moment about how your practice will look in the year 2025.

Will it change much from how you operate today?

The biggest changes will undoubtedly involve technology. There’s no arguing that digital transformation is coming on strong. While you don’t have to take a big leap of faith today and switch every system currently in place with a digital resource, you will start falling behind if you don’t have a plan for change.

What are your favorite apps? Chances are you have several you use every day.

Apps are designed to make our lives a little easier. Instead of searching for information, it’s all right there at the touch of a button.

But apps can also leave you vulnerable.