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.
This week saw a lot of ransomware news, ranging from new extortion tactics, to a ransomware gang giving away a free decryptor after attacking a children's hospital. [...]
Ransomware: contemporary threats, how to prevent them and how the FBI can help In April 2021, Dutch supermarkets faced a food shortage. The cause wasn't a drought or a sudden surge in the demand for avocados. Rather, the reason was a ransomware attack. In the past years, companies, universities, schools, medical facilities and other organizations have been targeted by ransomware threat actors,
Blame it on the affiliate Notorious ransomware gang LockBit "formally apologized" for an extortion attack against Canada's largest children's hospital that the criminals blamed on a now-blocked affiliate group, and said it published a free decryptor for the victim to recover the files.…
The Russian-speaking cybercrime gang said an affiliate violated its rules against attacks that could lead to bodily harm for medical patients.
Group apologizes to Toronto-based SickKids
Number of government, education and healthcare incidents remains steady
Ransomware attacks in 2022 impacted more than 200 hundred larger organizations in the U.S. public sector in the government, educational, and healthcare verticals. [...]
The LockBit ransomware gang has released a free decryptor for the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), saying one of its members violated rules by attacking the healthcare organization. [...]