The U.S. healthcare industry has been hit with 22 major computer breaches since mid-2015 in the last year, according to an article on The Charlotte Observer website.
SecurityScorecard, which offers cybersecurity ratings and monitoring, found that nearly two-thirds of the 27 largest hospitals in the United States are slow to install security patches to overcome cyber vulnerabilities.
Alex Heid, chief research officer at SecurityScorecard, said cybercriminals attacked the healthcare sector because it was less rigorously defended than other industries and because health records contained financial data.
Heid said medical device manufacturers had largely been focused on improving their products rather than protecting them from cyber crime.