Lapses in cybersecurity are costing health care companies much more than money: ‘Those are people’s lives’

Good morning. Cybersecurity is top of mind in many C-suites and audit committees, but cyberattacks in the health care sector, in particular, are on the rise, experts say.

“In my world, it’s almost an act of war,” Stephen Gillett, chair and CEO of life science company Verily, said during Fortune’s Brainstorm Health conference in Dana Point, Calif., earlier this week. "Those are people’s lives, their personal information. That is not something that should just be a tech issue that we’re solving for.”

For example, Change Healthcare, a division of UnitedHealth Group, was affected by a ransomware attack on Feb. 21 targeting billing and care authorization portals. It caused a nationwide outage of the network, with some providers initially losing an estimated $100 million per day. It’s estimated that a third of Americans had their health information leaked to the dark web.

“I think cybersecurity in health care truly takes a village,” said Andrea Downing, president and cofounder of The Light Collective. “We can no longer assume that what happens within our firewalls is going to be good enough.” Many hackers are outpacing existing protections, Downing added, saying her organization is even starting to see ransomware attackers impersonate physicians and infiltrate clinical research.

“Within health care cybersecurity, we have [Health-ISAC] and [Bio-ISAC],” Downing said. “We have to expand capacity beyond just one health care system, sharing intel with one another. To really build resistance, we’re going to have to shore up the public-private partnerships and fund an infrastructure to really get ahead, and detect and respond to these attacks.”

Finance chiefs of hospitals and health care systems are focused on building loyalty among patients and using advanced tech to enhance the customer experience. Few things, if any, can destroy customer loyalty faster than a well-targeted cyberattack.

You can watch a video of the complete panel session at Brainstorm Health here.

In recognition of the Memorial Day holiday, the next CFO Daily will be in your inbox on Tuesday. Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com