ABSTRACT
The healthcare industry across the globe provides adequate access to save and extend patients’ life expectancy with the motto “to get people healthy.” The entire world has understood the significance and necessity of the healthcare industry during the Covid-19 pandemics. Starting from age-old healthcare 1.0, the healthcare industry is now transformed to the current scenario healthcare 4.0. Earlier, in the first generation, the interaction between the doctor and the patient was limited and the private information of the patient was completely confidential. But, as the technology evolved, fourth generation healthcare industry (healthcare 4.0) adopted a lot of technologically advanced concepts such as Internet of Things (IoT), Fog and Cloud Computing, Telemedicine, etc., which naturally added up a lot of stakeholders, thereby increasing the risk of leaking private information to attackers or hackers. This particular chapter, “Evolution of Healthcare Sector and Evolving Cyberattacks,” briefly introduces the readers to the distributed system across computer systems and discusses its specific role in the healthcare sector. Though there are several cyber threat targets in the market, the healthcare industry at any scale was the prime target for cyber attackers. The major cause and effect of all these recurrent security threats are discussed in this chapter with a detailed infographic representation of the cyberattacks imposed on the healthcare industry.
This chapter further helps to understand various forms and types of these cyberattacks in the healthcare sector. With a focus on curbing cyberattacks, this chapter also focuses on contemporary research trends with multiple insights into the healthcare sector to safeguard the patients’ health records from any further attacks or data breaches. Finally, this chapter concludes by describing simple precautionary steps that healthcare industries can practice to defend themselves from cyberattacks.
