PHARMACY owners are being urged to review their cyber security measures to ensure patient information is protected, following the recent Optus data breach.
Professional indemnity insurer, Pharmaceutical Defence Limited (PDL), told Pharmacy Daily that while none of its members have reported being impacted by the Optus breach, it advised pharmacists to "take steps to protect the use of their personal information".
"Pharmacy regulators would be looking to see that community pharmacy owners in particular had adequate cyber protection in place, if there is any risk to customer/patient data being exposed," a PDL spokesperson said.
"Like any business, they would also be required to have a data breach recovery plan in place.
"Organisations like FredIT provide cyber protection services from the pharmacy business perspective, and are probably in a position to provide more advice about this, as perhaps are Guild Insurance as a provider of cyber insurance to pharmacy owners."
With the health sector consistently topping the Office of the Australian Information Officer's notifiable data breach reports, PDL recommended that pharmacy owners should take steps to ensure staff engage in good online security practices to mitigate against the risk of malicious attacks.
"We would also suggest a reminder to pharmacists about good cyber security practices including avoidance of sharing passwords with pharmacy staff, regularly updating passwords used by pharmacists in electronic systems such as My Health Record, RTPM systems, vaccination recording systems and caution opening emails or links that could be phishing attacks," the spokesperson said.
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