Life Sciences & Health Care Companies Unprepared for Information Security Risks: Deloi...( NEW YORK July 22 /-...),Health

NEW YORK, July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Bolstered by the promise of the information age, coupled with billions of dollars in economic stimulus funding, life sciences and health care companies still may not meet lofty expectations of maximizing the value of data and automation efficiencies. That's one way to interpret the key findings of Deloitte's 2009 Global Security Study for Life Sciences and Health Care companies. Worse yet, inadequate security budgets, lack of a strong reporting structure and ever-increasing sophisticated security threats pose significant trouble to life sciences and health care companies, exacerbated by the challenging economy.

More than 100 global life sciences companies, health care providers and health care insurance companies, with approximately half of the companies based in the United States, participated in the Deloitte study, The Time Is Now. The overarching objective of the study is to help companies assess the state of information security within their organizations, make comparisons with similar organizations around the world and provide management with insights to help identify trends and make better and informed strategic decisions.

Respondents also cited outsourcing data management functions to third-party sources, internal breaches and internal threats, including third party relationships, and protection from data leakage as primary concern of their information and security programs. Identity and access management was also recognized as a top priority.

"The lifeblood of any health care or life sciences organization is information, be it patient, intellectual property or financial. But organizations are dealing with a lot right now. They have the challenge of how to protect their information while facing increasingly sophisticated security threats and increasing regulatory and legislative requirements -- all again
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