Health care providers are among the top four industries cited by Moody's Investors Service as particularly vulnerable to the after-shock of a cyberattack.

In a summary of a report to investors, Moody's notes that "the threat of cyberattacks continues to rise across all sectors, and the implications could start taking a higher priority in credit analysis. … Industries which house significant amounts of personal data, such as financial institutions, health care entities, higher education organizations and retail companies are at greatest risk to experience large-scale data theft attacks resulting in serious reputational and financial damage."

The core of the report essentially consists of a warning to investors that, while cyberattacks and mass data thefts in and of themselves probably won't take down a stock, such attacks represent a factor that will increase in importance over time.