A year-long examination of cybersecurity by The Washington Post has revealed that health care is among the most vulnerable industries in the country, in part because it lags behind in addressing known problems.

“I have never seen an industry with more gaping security holes,” said Avi Rubin, a computer scientist and technical director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University. “If our financial industry regarded security the way the health-care sector does, I would stuff my cash in a mattress under my bed.”

Compared with financial, corporate and military realms, relatively few hacks have been directed at hospitals and other medical facilities. But in recent months, officials with the Department of Homeland Security have expressed growing fear that health care presents an inviting target to activist hackers, cyberwarriors, criminals and terrorists.

Excerpt from “Health-care sector vulnerable to hackers, researchers say,” The Washington Post, Dec. 25, 2012