Jun 8
2020
Unprecedented Times, Unprecedented Threats: What Healthcare Organizations Can Do to Stay Secure
By Justin Fier, director of cyber intelligence and analytics, Darktrace
As the healthcare sector struggles against the COVID-19 crisis, working tirelessly to protect staff and patients while struggling with worsening economic realities, cybercriminals around the world are seeing a golden opportunity to attack.
Overwhelming demand, exhausted staff, IT teams pulled in multiple directions, and a critical reliance on technology to treat patients mean that adversaries have never had more opportunity or incentive to attack healthcare organizations.
By locking healthcare providers out of critical systems at this critical time, attackers can force them to pay a ransom to recover access or face adding to the already grim death toll.
The unprecedented amount of global warnings, including the recent INTERPOL alert and an announcement from the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), highlight that cybersecurity for the healthcare sector is not just about protecting data, but about saving lives.
Recently, an advisory was jointly issued by CISA and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). This joint alert stemmed from the increase in state-sponsored attacks against organizations connected to COVID-19 research and response. These include pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, government agencies, research institutes, and more.