It's a gross understatement to say that security is critical in healthcare, where a breach can not only impact an organization's effectiveness and reputation but also affect patient privacy and-worst-case scenario-health and safety.

If you are reading this blog, you no doubt already know the most common challenges to securing digital healthcare organizations, from ensuring data availability to protecting patient privacy, from safeguarding facilities to blocking malware and other cyber threats. The proliferation of data-collecting devices and apps across the continuum only makes healthcare more vulnerable, providing increasing access points for would-be attackers, who grow more sophisticated by the minute.

Acknowledging these common challenges, what you may find disconcerting is that most healthcare organizations-including life sciences companies-sit behind the curve in terms of security preparedness or "maturity." Our just-released Annual Cybersecurity Report specifically calls this out, noting that less than one-third of healthcare organizations have high maturity. This means that most healthcare organizations still treat security as a requirement best relegated to IT, rather than integrating security across organizational culture, processes, and technology.

Thanks to Cisco, there's never been a better time to examine security solutions.

To help healthcare organizations move up the maturity curve, we've created an insightful infographic that offers practical solutions to 10 of the most common security challenges in digital healthcare, including data availability and DoS attacks, legacy applications and patching, network-connected clinical devices, malware and ransomware, physical security, leadership and training, and in-house threats like shadow IT. For a deep dive, there is also the accompanying white paper.

Cisco's also here to help with 5000 security experts, 250+ threat researchers, world-class threat intelligence, an end-to-end architectural approach, and a standout security portfolio to protect your network, data, devices, and users, wherever they are.

For more information, please visit cisco.com/go/healthcare and connect with us on social media.