Cybersecurity Awareness Month – Healthcare & Ransomware

Healthcare Companies are Prime Ransomware Targets

Healthcare organizations contain so much private data that can be used for identity theft and ransom that they have become a prime target or hackers.  The reason for this is simple: modern ransomware can exfiltrate the data it encrypts holding healthcare companies hostage with the threat of releasing patient records to the public internet.  This would be devastating to the patient privacy, lead to HIPAA fines, and a loss of reputation and consumer trust.  Would you visit a hospital that had published your personal health records online in a data breach?

For all companies, not just healthcare, CyberHoot recommends the following protective measures:

CyberHoot Best practices:

1. Train your employees on the common attacks that are out there.  From weak passwords and password managers, to the importance of multi-factor authentication and how to spot phishing attacks.  Awareness is the key to defending your business.
2. Govern you employees with cybersecurity policies including Acceptable Use, Password, Information Handling and a Written Information Security Policy.
3. Establish cybersecurity best practice processes such as a Vulnerability Alert Management Process (VAMP) and a Cybersecurity Incident Management Process (CIMP) to guide and require action in the face of an emergency.  Then move on onboarding and offboarding processes, SaaS management processes, and 3rd party risk management.
4. Establish strong technical protections including: a Firewall, antivirus, anti-malware, anti-spam, multi-factor authentication on all critical accounts,  Enable full disk encryption, manage the keys carefully, and most importantly, adopt, train on and require all employees to use a Password Manager.
5. Test employees on how to spot and avoid phishing attacks.  CyberHoot has released a disruptive method of Phish Testing the fills in gaps in your employees knowledge without punishing them for failure.  Instead we reward them for success.  More info is available here.
6. Backup your data by following our 3-2-1 Backup methodology to ensure you can recover your business from a cybersecurity event.
7. In the modern Work-from-Home era, make sure you’re managing personal devices connecting to your network by validating their security (patching, antivirus, DNS protections) or prohibiting their use entirely.
8. If you haven’t had a risk assessment by a 3rd party in the last 2 years, you should have one now. Establishing a risk management framework in your organization is critical to addressing your most egregious risks with your finite time and money.
9. Buy Cyber-Insurance to protect you in a catastrophic failure situation. Cyber-Insurance is no different than Car, Fire, Flood, or Life insurance. It’s there when you need it most.

CyberHoot believes that for many small to medium sized businesses and MSPs, you can greatly improve your defenses and chances of not becoming another victim of cyberattack if you follow the advice above.

We hope you’re enjoying Cybersecurity Awareness Month (CAM).  Visit or subscribe to CyberHoot’s Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter pages to get daily updates throughout the month.

Sources:

Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare cost 20.8 Billion in 2020

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