DSPM: Healthcare Data Security Amid Rising Breaches Mahesh Nawale

In the healthcare industry, data is always the target.

Healthcare organizations face an array of data security challenges as they collect, store, and access huge amounts of personal data and protected health information (PHI). Health records and other patient information are vital to healthcare operations, but their high black-market value makes them attractive targets for cyberattackers.

Per a recent study, the healthcare industry remains the top target for cybercriminals. The study found that:

Data breaches have increased by 94%, typically involving data stored across multiple cloud environments
Healthcare data breaches consistently cost more than the global average over the last decade: the highest average breach cost US$10.93 million.
Healthcare data breaches last 213 days before discovery on average, compared to 194 days on average across other industries.

Healthcare organizations bear the weight of many expectations. They must ensure high-quality patient care, support a rapidly evolving infrastructure, and protect sensitive data accessed across multiple devices and locations. They also must comply with stringent data protection regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. Additionally, they must detect and mitigate a growing volume of risks and threats.

Top security concerns in the healthcare industry1. Complex and changing environments

Use of the cloud is growing across healthcare, with more than 81% of healthcare organizations using cloud services. Rapid adoption of multicloud environments and cloud services introduces many new challenges. Processing, accessing, and storing huge and growing amounts of data in the cloud requires secure, streamlined access from myriad locations and devices.

Today, the healthcare industry generates roughly 30% of the world’s data volume, and is expected to reach 36% by 2025. With so much data in distributed cloud infrastructure, healthcare security teams struggle to gain the right visibility to identify sensitive data and its security posture. They’re also challenged to manage and enforce ‌effective, consistent policies that cover evolving attack vectors.

2. Targeted attacks

The healthcare industry holds a vast amount of personal and sensitive information, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals. Stolen financial data usually has a short shelf life, but PHI is forever. This data is 10 to 20 times more valuable than credit card or banking information.

In recent years, several high-profile cyberattacks on the healthcare industry have highlighted severe implications. The average cost of a healthcare data breach was nearly US$10 million in 2024. Top observed campaigns carried out ransomware attacks against exposed and vulnerable services. Phishing remains the most common attack vector, enabling insider threats both deliberate and accidental.

3. Data and security sprawl

Healthcare organizations often work with third-party partners, such as research firms and service providers). This creates opportunities for data breaches and insider threats, making data security management even more critical. A siloed security approach, with multiple security products, exacerbates the complexity of these challenges.

Healthcare spends about 7% more on security than ‌other industries do. Over time, this has led to complexity, with a new security tool in the stack for each new threat vector or expanding attack surface. As budgets remain tight, security teams must now reduce this complexity while still effectively managing ‌their data environments.

4. Strict regulations and compliance requirements

As healthcare organizations embrace the cloud and modern technologies, they must also navigate a web of data compliance regulations. Aligning security and privacy practices with government mandates such as HIPAA, HITECH, PIPEDA, GDPR, and others is a continual, essential effort for all healthcare organizations.

The cost of noncompliance can be quite high. In 2023, the US Office for Civil Rights issued more than US$4 million in fines for HIPAA Security Rule violations in 2023, and the https://compliancy-group.com/2023-hipaa-breaches-and-fines/average penalty has reached a massive $1.5 million. Aside from these fines, organizations can also suffer damage to their reputations, and possibly face legal consequences. In some cases, noncompliance can even lead to the suspension or revocation of business licenses.

Data security professionals and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) teams face the challenge of managing the requirements of all these regulatory frameworks. This is a continuous effort, with no end destination: the data landscape changes, and so do the regulations. That’s why it’s crucial for organizations to adopt a comprehensive data protection strategy that helps them stay compliant.

The role of DSPM in the healthcare industryThe industry’s unique security challenges call for a proactive data security approach across the entire continuum of care. To address these challenges and reduce data security risk, healthcare organizations need to establish a robust data security posture. This is where a data security posture management (DSPM) solution comes in.

DSPM provides comprehensive data discovery and classification, inventory, risk assessment, and remediation, ensuring the security of sensitive health data. Let’s look a little more closely at some of these core capabilities with respect to healthcare.

Automated data discovery

DSPM delivers complete visibility across an organization’s healthcare data estate. By fully mapping all data stores—including structured, unstructured, and shadow databases containing sensitive data—DSPM provides a detailed topology and inventory of the data estate and associated risk. This comprehensive data visibility and control helps security teams ‌identify potential vulnerabilities and ensure they are tracking and securing all sensitive data.

Advanced data classification and inventory

With full visibility of the environment, DSPM can use GenAI and ML to automatically classify and inventory different types of data based on their levels of sensitivity. This enables healthcare providers to put adaptive access controls in place, ensuring that only authorized users can access highly sensitive health data.

Data access governance

DSPM enables continuous monitoring of access patterns, user behaviors, and more across the healthcare data landscape. It correlates and decodes weak signals or attacks underway. This proactive monitoring allows incident response teams to quickly identify and mitigate emerging incidents before they can escalate into full-blown attacks.

Critically, DSPM supports the principle of least-privileged access. By ensuring enforcement of tight access controls for sensitive data, it reduces the risk of unauthorized access and limits the potential impact of data breaches.

Single DLP engine

Using a single DLP engine for the entire data protection solution enables healthcare organizations to create a policy once and apply it everywhere in the enterprise. This ensures sensitive data is consistently tracked and protected, no matter where or how it is accessed, while reducing the cost and complexity of deploying and maintaining complicated policies.

Regulatory compliance

DSPM can be a game-changer for ‌healthcare organizations striving to meet regulatory mandates. In addition to securing sensitive data and mitigating risk, DSPM helps with adherence to HIPAA, GDPR, and other regulations. While these regulations establish the fundamental standards for managing medical records, DSPM goes beyond the standards, adding an extra layer of security. DSPM performs:

Continuous monitoring of cloud environments for compliance with industry standards
Automatic mapping of data posture against internal and external regulatory benchmarks (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.) to streamline compliance processes
Alerting/Notification on potential compliance violations for cross-functional teams, with recommended remediation guidance.

This proactive approach helps teams more easily identify and fix compliance gaps, minimizing the risk of legal issues or financial penalties.

Zscaler DSPM: A trusted partner to strengthen data securityZscaler DSPM is fully integrated to the world’s most comprehensive data protection platform that secures structured and unstructured data across web, SaaS, public clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP), private apps, email, and endpoints.

Zscaler DSPM provides healthcare organizations with the

Granular visibility into sensitive data
Accurate data classification and access graphs with AI and ML
Context-based exposure and security posture insights powered by advanced correlation
Risk assessment and remediation guidance
Single, unified DLP engine for consistent, best-in-class data protection across all channels

If your healthcare organization still relies on multiple solutions to secure sensitive data, it’s time for an upgrade. Zscaler will partner with you to help secure your data and confidently navigate the complexities of data security and compliance in the industry.

Want to learn more about DSPM, plus get practical guidance to help you select the right DSPM platform for your organization? Download our complete DSPM buyer’s guide.  

​[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”In the healthcare industry, data is always the target.

Healthcare organizations face an array of data security challenges as they collect, store, and access huge amounts of personal data and protected health information (PHI). Health records and other patient information are vital to healthcare operations, but their high black-market value makes them attractive targets for cyberattackers.

Per a recent study, the healthcare industry remains the top target for cybercriminals. The study found that:

Data breaches have increased by 94%, typically involving data stored across multiple cloud environments
Healthcare data breaches consistently cost more than the global average over the last decade: the highest average breach cost US$10.93 million.
Healthcare data breaches last 213 days before discovery on average, compared to 194 days on average across other industries.

Healthcare organizations bear the weight of many expectations. They must ensure high-quality patient care, support a rapidly evolving infrastructure, and protect sensitive data accessed across multiple devices and locations. They also must comply with stringent data protection regulations like HIPAA and GDPR. Additionally, they must detect and mitigate a growing volume of risks and threats.

Top security concerns in the healthcare industry1. Complex and changing environments

Use of the cloud is growing across healthcare, with more than 81% of healthcare organizations using cloud services. Rapid adoption of multicloud environments and cloud services introduces many new challenges. Processing, accessing, and storing huge and growing amounts of data in the cloud requires secure, streamlined access from myriad locations and devices.

Today, the healthcare industry generates roughly 30% of the world’s data volume, and is expected to reach 36% by 2025. With so much data in distributed cloud infrastructure, healthcare security teams struggle to gain the right visibility to identify sensitive data and its security posture. They’re also challenged to manage and enforce ‌effective, consistent policies that cover evolving attack vectors.

2. Targeted attacks

The healthcare industry holds a vast amount of personal and sensitive information, making it an attractive target for cybercriminals. Stolen financial data usually has a short shelf life, but PHI is forever. This data is 10 to 20 times more valuable than credit card or banking information.

In recent years, several high-profile cyberattacks on the healthcare industry have highlighted severe implications. The average cost of a healthcare data breach was nearly US$10 million in 2024. Top observed campaigns carried out ransomware attacks against exposed and vulnerable services. Phishing remains the most common attack vector, enabling insider threats both deliberate and accidental.

3. Data and security sprawl

Healthcare organizations often work with third-party partners, such as research firms and service providers). This creates opportunities for data breaches and insider threats, making data security management even more critical. A siloed security approach, with multiple security products, exacerbates the complexity of these challenges.

Healthcare spends about 7% more on security than ‌other industries do. Over time, this has led to complexity, with a new security tool in the stack for each new threat vector or expanding attack surface. As budgets remain tight, security teams must now reduce this complexity while still effectively managing ‌their data environments.

4. Strict regulations and compliance requirements

As healthcare organizations embrace the cloud and modern technologies, they must also navigate a web of data compliance regulations. Aligning security and privacy practices with government mandates such as HIPAA, HITECH, PIPEDA, GDPR, and others is a continual, essential effort for all healthcare organizations.

The cost of noncompliance can be quite high. In 2023, the US Office for Civil Rights issued more than US$4 million in fines for HIPAA Security Rule violations in 2023, and the https://compliancy-group.com/2023-hipaa-breaches-and-fines/average penalty has reached a massive $1.5 million. Aside from these fines, organizations can also suffer damage to their reputations, and possibly face legal consequences. In some cases, noncompliance can even lead to the suspension or revocation of business licenses.

Data security professionals and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) teams face the challenge of managing the requirements of all these regulatory frameworks. This is a continuous effort, with no end destination: the data landscape changes, and so do the regulations. That’s why it’s crucial for organizations to adopt a comprehensive data protection strategy that helps them stay compliant.

The role of DSPM in the healthcare industryThe industry’s unique security challenges call for a proactive data security approach across the entire continuum of care. To address these challenges and reduce data security risk, healthcare organizations need to establish a robust data security posture. This is where a data security posture management (DSPM) solution comes in.

DSPM provides comprehensive data discovery and classification, inventory, risk assessment, and remediation, ensuring the security of sensitive health data. Let’s look a little more closely at some of these core capabilities with respect to healthcare.

Automated data discovery

DSPM delivers complete visibility across an organization’s healthcare data estate. By fully mapping all data stores—including structured, unstructured, and shadow databases containing sensitive data—DSPM provides a detailed topology and inventory of the data estate and associated risk. This comprehensive data visibility and control helps security teams ‌identify potential vulnerabilities and ensure they are tracking and securing all sensitive data.

Advanced data classification and inventory

With full visibility of the environment, DSPM can use GenAI and ML to automatically classify and inventory different types of data based on their levels of sensitivity. This enables healthcare providers to put adaptive access controls in place, ensuring that only authorized users can access highly sensitive health data.

Data access governance

DSPM enables continuous monitoring of access patterns, user behaviors, and more across the healthcare data landscape. It correlates and decodes weak signals or attacks underway. This proactive monitoring allows incident response teams to quickly identify and mitigate emerging incidents before they can escalate into full-blown attacks.

Critically, DSPM supports the principle of least-privileged access. By ensuring enforcement of tight access controls for sensitive data, it reduces the risk of unauthorized access and limits the potential impact of data breaches.

Single DLP engine

Using a single DLP engine for the entire data protection solution enables healthcare organizations to create a policy once and apply it everywhere in the enterprise. This ensures sensitive data is consistently tracked and protected, no matter where or how it is accessed, while reducing the cost and complexity of deploying and maintaining complicated policies.

Regulatory compliance

DSPM can be a game-changer for ‌healthcare organizations striving to meet regulatory mandates. In addition to securing sensitive data and mitigating risk, DSPM helps with adherence to HIPAA, GDPR, and other regulations. While these regulations establish the fundamental standards for managing medical records, DSPM goes beyond the standards, adding an extra layer of security. DSPM performs:

Continuous monitoring of cloud environments for compliance with industry standards
Automatic mapping of data posture against internal and external regulatory benchmarks (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, etc.) to streamline compliance processes
Alerting/Notification on potential compliance violations for cross-functional teams, with recommended remediation guidance.

This proactive approach helps teams more easily identify and fix compliance gaps, minimizing the risk of legal issues or financial penalties.

Zscaler DSPM: A trusted partner to strengthen data securityZscaler DSPM is fully integrated to the world’s most comprehensive data protection platform that secures structured and unstructured data across web, SaaS, public clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP), private apps, email, and endpoints.

Zscaler DSPM provides healthcare organizations with the

Granular visibility into sensitive data
Accurate data classification and access graphs with AI and ML
Context-based exposure and security posture insights powered by advanced correlation
Risk assessment and remediation guidance
Single, unified DLP engine for consistent, best-in-class data protection across all channels

If your healthcare organization still relies on multiple solutions to secure sensitive data, it’s time for an upgrade. Zscaler will partner with you to help secure your data and confidently navigate the complexities of data security and compliance in the industry.

Want to learn more about DSPM, plus get practical guidance to help you select the right DSPM platform for your organization? Download our complete DSPM buyer’s guide.”}]]