See how you rank against other healthcare professionals dealing with firewall implementation.
2020 HIPAA Firewall Trends
How Is Healthcare Doing With Firewalls?
Over the past three years, we interviewed over 150 healthcare professionals responsible for HIPAA compliance (i.e., 61 professionals in 2019, 40 in 2018, and 51 in 2017) about their firewall practices, policies, and procedures. This infographic is an analysis of their collected responses.
2019 SUMMARY
25% don’t know what firewall(s) their organization uses.
59% review their firewall rules at least annually.
56% use a third party to manage their network’s firewall(s).
27% segment their network (through firewall segmentation, VLANs, SDN).
Types of Firewalls Organizations Use
All networks (whether small or large) need both a hardware and software firewall, as well as a web-application firewall for all public-facing web applications.
2019 Data
Hardware firewall: 41%
Software firewall: 31%
Web application firewalls: 15%
Don't know: 25%
We don't use firewalls: 5%
2018 Data
Hardware firewall: 78%
Software firewall: 35%
Web application firewalls: 13%
2017 Data
Hardware firewall: 20%
Software firewall: 18%
Both: 31%
Don't know: 31%
2016 Data
Hardware firewall: 31%
Software firewall: 24%
Both: 18%
Don't know: 27%
How often firewall rules are reviewed
A security professional should regularly review your firewall rules (e.g., at least quarterly).
2019 Data
Never: 10%
Don’t know: 31%
Annually: 22%
Semiannually: 12%
Quarterly: 7%
Monthly: 15%
Weekly: 3%
2018 Data
Hardware firewall: 41%
Never: 10%
Don’t know: 50%
Annually: 18%
Semiannually: 7%
Quarterly: 8%
Monthly: 5%
Weekly: 2%
2017 Data
Never: 0%
Don’t know: 45%
Annually: 10%
Semiannually: 0%
Quarterly: 16%
Monthly: 16%
Weekly: 13%
2016 Data
Hardware firewall: 41%
Never: 7%
Don’t know: 41%
Annually: 13%
Semiannually: 0%
Quarterly: 17%
Monthly: 13%
Weekly: 9%
Network firewalls managed by a security professional or third party
Though not required, managed firewalls can help organizations with complex firewall rules and firewall management.
2019 Data
Don’t use firewalls: 5%
Don’t know: 18%
In-house security professional: 21%
Third-party vendor: 44%
Both: 12%
2018 Data
Don’t use firewalls: 2%
Don’t know: 7%
In-house security professional: 18%
Third-party vendor: 60%
Both: 13%
2017 Data
Don’t use firewalls: 0%
Don’t know: 16%
In-house security professional: 10%
Third-party vendor: 74%
Both: 0%
Organizations segment their network
Though not required, firewalls can be used to implement network segmentation within an organization’s network.
2019 Data
27% Yes
42% No
31% Don’t know
HIPAA TAKEAWAYS SINCE 2018
47% decrease in organizations that use hardware firewalls.
11% decrease in organizations that use software firewalls.
48% increase in organizations that review firewall rules at least annually.
8% decrease in organizations that use both a third party and an in-house professional to manage their firewall(s).
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