Prioritizing Security Within The Pharmaceutical Industry

The explosion of pharmaceutical spending in recent years has caught the attention of cyber criminals who are attracted by the value of data.

  • July 21, 2022 | Author: Allison Bergamo
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The explosion of pharmaceutical spending in recent years has caught the attention of cyber criminals who are attracted by the value of data and IP as well as the perceived weakness in pharma companies’ cyber defenses. Given that pharmaceutical spending increased by ~ $327 billion in 2021, and on average, it can take 257 days for pharmaceutical companies to identify a breach, their assumptions are spot-on.

Since the onset of COVID-19, companies in all industries have experienced digital transformations at unprecedented speeds. Research from McKinsey found that digital adoption delivered five years of growth in just eight weeks in the early part of 2020. And a Deloitte C-Suite survey of pharmaceutical companies listed R&D, global markets, and digital/IT transformation as the top three strategic business priorities for the next five years.

As more data is generated by pharma companies, there is a bigger risk for cyberattacks. According to one study, 53 percent of pharmaceutical and biotech companies have already suffered from malicious activity. The study also estimates that the average cost of a breach in the pharmaceutical business is more than $5 million. This is more than health care,
energy and financial services industries.

All these data points translate into opportunities for you to provide cybersecurity solutions that address the specific needs of your pharmaceutical clients. Keep in mind that many pharma companies are making do with disparate security solutions that have been “bolted on” over the years to address a specific need. This results in unnecessary complexity, lack of visibility and wasted IT resources that are being used to separately manage all the different security controls.

The Fortinet Security Fabric provides an end-to-end, integrated security architecture—spanning from a pharma company’s manufacturing facility to its headquarters, to its branch offices. It delivers protection across the network from the data center to endpoints to multiple clouds. It also provides centralized visibility and control over disparate security elements. The result is a streamlined, end-to-end security solution that can proactively detect and remediate potential cyberattacks.

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