Despite ongoing concerns, a Veracode study found that globally, the healthcare sector is the fastest industry when it comes to addressing common vulnerabilities found in software. The global report found that healthcare organisations took only six days to address a quarter of their vulnerabilities in code and just seven months (216 days) to remediate the majority (75%) of vulnerabilities. That’s almost eight months faster than the average organisation who is taking 15 months (472 days) to fix 75% of its vulnerabilities.

In light of mounting pressure for the healthcare industry, Paul Farrington, EMEA Chief Technology Officer at Veracode, made the following comment.

“Healthcare organisations are remediating at the most rapid rate at every interval compared to their peers. It takes just a little over seven months for healthcare organisations to reach the final quartile of open vulnerabilities, about eight months sooner than it takes the average organisation to reach the same landmark.

It shows remarkable resilience for an industry which was heavily targeted and badly damaged during the WannaCry ransomware attack two years ago. However, millions of cyber-attacks are aimed at the healthcare sector each day, seeking any weak spot. Using code that is secure from the start can help healthcare reduce security risk further.”