Classifying Healthcare and Social Organizations in Cybersecurity Profiles

While cybersecurity is of high relevance for all organizations, special care is needed in the healthcare and social realm when coping with sensitive patient data. This study contributes to this under-investigated yet relevant field by examining how cybersecurity measures have been implemented within healthcare and social organizations. We rely on a combination of clustering analysis, discriminant analysis, and Tukey HSD testing to analyze survey data on 265 organizations in Flanders, Belgium. The resulting five clusters unveil five distinct approaches or organizational profiles and three major differentiators. The data suggests that the extent to which training, regular software updates, and data backup are implemented best describes the underlying cybersecurity profiles. Our findings reveal that a significant majority of surveyed organizations are situated in the lower echelons of the cybersecurity implementation differentiators, while only a minority of organizations demonstrate commendable levels of implementation. By enriching cybersecurity insights within the healthcare and social domain, our findings and their implications could resonate deeply, urging researchers to expand their research to bolster cyber resilience in specific sectors.