Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals go into the caregiving role for many reasons, but most reasons center on helping people. Unfortunately, by putting themselves in this role they also face the risks of violence.

Research published by Dr. James Phillips in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2016 found “health care violence is an underreported, ubiquitous, and persistent problem that has been tolerated and largely ignored.”  In his research, Dr. Phillips found:

• almost 75% of all workplace assaults between 2011 and 2013 happened in healthcare settings;
• 1% of emergency department nurses reported physical assault during the last year; and
• psychiatric aides experience workplace violence 69 times the national rate for all workplaces.

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Wikipedia defines social engineering, in the context of information security, as the “psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.” Our increasing reliance on vast networks of digital technology for information storage, research, controls, and transactions makes organizations highly vulnerable to social engineering fraud.

There is a strong urge to combat this risk with a technological fix like stronger encryption or better management controls. The problem is not a technical one because social engineering fraud is based on the exploitation of human interactions and human frailties.

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