Not surprising, cyber criminals are getting sneakier with their attacks and many of them are specifically targeting healthcare (although every business needs to take proper precautions). Cybersecurity is one of the most relevant topics to healthcare executives and health IT professionals in today’s current threat climate.
Problem 1: User safety is not a big enough priority
While health IT professionals seem to have complete focus on IT data management security, many fail to identify user-related threats as problems. That means, instead of focused on holistic measures to train and inform users about the latest attacks and schemes in which cyber criminals break into healthcare systems, they assume that their latest firewall update, antivirus platform and database management system are good enough.
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Do you remember the WannaCry virus? That ransomware virus that moved through networks like a wild fire?
WannaCry hero arrested for malicious hacking
The biggest problem with WannaCry (and recent infection outbreaks) is that they are hard to stop. Once inside your network, these viruses autonomously move and navigate the extents of a network. WannaCry may simply be pioneering how computer viruses infect business networks in the future.
What put many of us at ease earlier this spring is that WannaCry had a terminus. Soon after its outbreak, a British researcher was able to trigger a killswitch which ended the life of the virus.
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Do you have operating controls in place to protect confidential data? Can you pinpoint where your confidential data goes inside AND outside your office?
Have a documented process to ensure continued confidentiality of your data?
If you work or even touch confidential data—including ANY personal identifiable information (PII)—EVEN Remotely—you should be taking steps to ensure your data is secure and not at risk of being exposed from a hack, leak or theft.
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I know this may sound weird, but cybercriminals do focus on customer service.
Particularly it comes to ransomware—an extortion scheme aimed at getting your money after locking down your computer files, demanding a ransom in return for a decryption key—many criminals have made getting top notch service and support a priority.
With easy payment processes—detailed instructions and all major credit cards accepted)—and simple instructions on how to use the decryption key, ransomware criminals have taken strides to make it as easy as possible for a victim to pay their ransom and get their data.
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The hidden costs are all the things that put those businesses out of business. Data breaches within the healthcare industry do not stay under wraps. You are obligated to report a breach to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS), which becomes public knowledge. If you’re a local practice or have local presence, be assured that people will start to talk about your security breach and be certain that some will lose complete patient trust within a subset of your patients.
First, there’s a technical investigation. These are expensive. Investigations on single computers can cost well over $30,000! Because IT forensics is such a specialized field with very few players and your insurance company requires a technical investigation, you likely will be paying more for an investigation than you would ever paying to have complete security compliance.
A cloudy day in Michigan. With severe weather passing to the east and looming clouds predict the entire day, I thought it only appropriate to head over to Howell and Pick up Nicole from Armor Protective Packaging for a ride up north to Traverse City for lunch.
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