Stay updated with the latest healthcare cybersecurity trends, news, and tips to protect patient data and comply with medical industry security standards.
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Background for this topic.
Healthcare is the delivery of clinical care and related services through hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, insurers, and connected medical devices. It depends on electronic health records (EHRs), patient identity systems, diagnostic and imaging platforms, medication and scheduling systems, and data exchanges between organizations. These environments hold sensitive health and payment information, while the availability and integrity of systems can affect treatment, diagnostics, and patient safety.
Security concerns include unauthorized access or disclosure of records, alteration of clinical data, and disruption of care through attacks on EHRs, connected devices, or third-party services. Defenses require risk-based access controls, strong authentication, network separation where appropriate, secure device and software maintenance, backups that support clinical continuity, and tested downtime and incident-response procedures. Vulnerability management must account for legacy systems and devices that cannot be patched quickly. Privacy and compliance obligations, such as HIPAA in the United States, shape how organizations collect, use, share, retain, and report health information.
While some ransomware operations claim not to target hospitals, one relatively new ransomware gang named Rhysida doesn't seem to care. [...]
Missouri's Department of Social Services warns that protected Medicaid healthcare information was exposed in a data breach after IBM suffered a MOVEit data theft attack. [...]
The Rhysida ransomware as a service (RaaS) operation that emerged in May 2023 is gradually leaving the period of obscurity behind, as a recent wave of attacks on healthcare organizations has forced government agencies and cybersecurity companies to pay closer attention to its operations. [...]
Healthcare organizations are increasingly at risk from threat actors targeting Internet of Medical Things. Learn more from Outpost24 on how attack surface management can secure the IoMT devices. [...]