Ransomware is often the prime headline-stealing topic when it comes to cybersecurity and risks to the healthcare sector. But many entities often overlook the dominance of insider threats and its overall prevalence in a majority of these...
Luxottica of America recently reported a patient data breach, which impacted 829,454 patients. But prior to the security incident, the company faced a ransomware attack, and the Nefilim ransomware threat actors have since leaked data...
In the Fall of 2019, a damning report from ProPublica outlined a massive healthcare exposure: millions of medical images generated from Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) were left exposed and unsecured online. And the...“What we have found is a long list of unprotected medical systems, especially PACs systems found between the X-Ray machine, CT, MRI scanner, ultrasound machines, image-generating machines, and on the other side, electronic medical...These flaws are easy to address by simply applying the patch provided by the tech company, he added. Many of these systems show indications of compromise, unknown ports, trojans, and the like, which are typical for victims of trojans. At...
Threat actors have made it clear: healthcare will remain a prime target for ransomware attacks, extortion demands, phishing, and whatever nefarious scheme they can use to ensure a successful payday. But just what makes...“With lower confidence, we assess this wave of Ryuk activity may be, in part, in retaliation for September’s TrickBot disruptions,” Dudley noted. “Typically, emails designed to appear as internal...As these messages are tailored to the recipients, it makes it hard for the user to detect. Dudley explained that the workforce can be trained to detect these messages by using images leveraged in real campaigns. To Witt,...“Healthcare entities handle some of the most sensitive data and life-preserving medical systems often across a broad care collaboration ecosystem,” said Witt. “A compromise to these systems is a patient safety issue, so...
The FDA recently unveiled a new scoring system for assessing medical device vulnerabilities, an update from its previous system that was initially designed for commercial devices and didn’t account for patient...
The FBI is investigating an ongoing wave of cyberattacks, including Ryuk ransomware, trouncing US hospitals, health systems, and other providers. At least three systems have already been driven into EHR... Ryuk ransomware has pummeled the healthcare sector, predominantly targeting larger organizations or distributed networks of entities through their IT MSPs or hosting internet service providers. The human-operated...
Healthcare delivery organizations are increasingly deploying medical devices, IoT, and other medical platforms to improve connectivity and support patient care. But failed network segmentation, legacy devices, and other network... However, a deeper dive into the data revealed the majority of providers continue to struggle to appropriately apply surface view segmentations. There are also a concerning number of organizations that mixed...Vulnerable Device Communication For dos Santos, the real challenge is the communication between devices within and across segments, leveraging older versions of protocols, applied cryptographic measures, or the use of clear text, on... Researchers were able to conduct a host of nefarious activities, including passively intercepting test results sent in clear text by operators, by observing network traffic and examining the POCT01 packets, while actively intercepting...
HIPAA-required breach notifications in the wake of a security incident continue to be an Achille’s heel for the healthcare sector. Many notices appear laden with flowery language that make light of an... Erik B. Weinick, privacy and cyber litigation attorney for Otterbourg PC, explained providers should also be mindful that HIPAA is not the only regulation that should govern their response to a security... The provider also explained the details they did know at the time: Social Security numbers, administration information, full names, and case information were accessed during the attack. In June, Oregon DHS provided an update: the...
Universal Health Services is currently recovering from a ransomware attack across its 400 locations, with facilities leveraging back-up processes and paper documentation to continue safe and effective patient...
The hacking groups behind Pysa, or Mespinoza, SunCrypt, REvil, and NetWalker ransomware variants posted data allegedly stolen from five separate healthcare entities on the dark web for...
Digital Shadows recently reported that at least 15 billion compromised credentials and passwords are for sale on the dark web. The data should serve as a warning to healthcare entities on the need for...
The Office of Civil Rights recently shared ways an IT asset inventory can create a more effective risk analysis to close information security gaps and support HIPAA compliance. Given the sophistication of the current threat...In addition, employees will be crucial to improving an organization’s cybersecurity posture. Unfortunately, most the security department in most organizations functions with minimal employees, Mookencherry explained....As noted previously by security researchers, the HHS telehealth expansion brought its own risks to both protecting massive amounts of patient data and ensuring the security of the connection between the provider and patient, she...
The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a rise in targeted, sophisticated cyberattacks designed to take advantage of an increasingly connected environment. In healthcare, it’s led to a rise in nation-state attacks, in an effort...While system vulnerabilities should be remediated and monitored given the heightened traffic, phishing campaigns continue to be the leading infection vector, Pace explained. “These organizations are especially susceptible to...It’s clear that data sharing is crucial during a pandemic. However, it “represents a social contract of trust.” "But without transparency then suddenly personal demographic data, let alone...“When there’s a sudden shift in the agency controlling said data then it certainly raises questions about why this has happened," said Abed. “Is there a deficiency with the previous data controller? Or is there something...
A recent Forescout report showed more than a third of workstations in healthcare operate on unsupported versions of Windows, among a host of other vulnerabilities found in everyday medical devices. The COVID-19...For Langer, healthcare is focusing on two key vectors: the adoption of new technology and the IoT connectivity surge, as well as optimizing spending. Notably, the adoption of new technology can lead to better cost savings and...And without those insights, organizations won’t be able to correlate the devices with the right vulnerabilities within the threat landscape. Thus, organizations won’t be able to create actionable insights. ...The Need for Collaboration Information sharing is crucial to shoring up the healthcare threat landscape, including participation in forums and groups. Langer explained that the reality is there are a range of sizes and types of healthcare...
The recently reported Ripple20 vulnerabilities found in more than 52,000 medical device models that could allow for remote code execution, highlight the need for greater collaboration between healthcare...“What the FDA is going with standards and guidance is really cutting edge. And there will be additional guidance going forward that will empower manufacturers to build in security at the beginning,” she...
Healthcare is the sector most impacted by a group of 19 critical vulnerabilities known as Ripple20, found in the TCP/IP communication stack of hundreds of millions of IoT and connected devices. The impact of which is...
A host of cyberattack trends on the health sector emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as hackers sought to take advantage of the crisis with ransomware and misinformation campaigns, according to a 4iQ report. Mitigation...
UK-Based telehealth app Babylon Health recently experienced a breach of its general practitioner platform, where users were able to access videos from other patients’ appointments, first reported by the BBC. On June 9, a patient...
The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the pace of change in the healthcare sector, from telehealth expansion to the rapid deployment of temporary hospitals. But the increase in telework, mobile tech, remote care, and temporary hospitals has also...Most organizations are dealing with an increasing number of new apps being hosted in the cloud or in the public cloud space, said Foster. The number of mobile devices has also increased over the last five years. Notable in healthcare, where...“Hospital security teams need to implement basic security procedures to protect critical equipment such as connected medical devices,” Olcott said. “Security teams can leverage remote office risk discovery tools to easily...
The number of confirmed data breaches in the healthcare sector substantially increased last year, as external threats exceeded the number of insider-related incidents for one of the first times, according to the latest Verizon Data Breach...
