The Necessity of Information Security in the Vulnerable Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

The pharmaceutical industry produces billions of dollars in sales each year. The industry is evolving and relying on using technology more and more to conduct day-to-day business. The pharmaceutical industry generates enormous amounts of sensitive and private information such as medical records, employee information, financial data and research data. This makes the pharmaceutical industry vulnerable to cybercrime. The pharmaceutical industry has a big responsibility to stakeholders, patients, employees and customers all over the world to ensure this information is secure. It is imperative for organizations to budget adequate amounts of money and resources to have effective Information Security Management. Information Security Management is critical in the pharmaceutical industry and the alternative of not having it would be devastating to a pharmaceutical company. Cyber criminals can tarnish company reputations and the effects can take years to overcome. The main contributions of this paper will be to describe the concerns about the security of information in the pharmaceutical industry, provide examples of organizations that are victims of cybercrime, describe regulations in place to help reduce information security breaches and illustrate why information security is necessary in the pharmaceutical industry.