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Risk to patient safety from cyberattacks critical, even as specifics about direct links remain elusive

September 9, 2021 – Article posted on SC Media

Critical attacks against health care thrived in the last year. Now, as patient volumes continue to surge in some parts of the country, safety concerns grow increasingly dire.

And yet, say experts, specific data that clearly demonstrates the impact of cyberattacks on patient care remains elusive. This reality, in fact, further complicates an already complex effort among health care providers to establish technology plans and processes that put patient safety and care first.

Most hospitals aren’t prepared to fend off ransomware, and there’s still no way to eliminate risk: providers instead need to determine the risk they’re willing to accept and implement tech and processes to secure the network.

SC Magazine spoke with GuidePoint Security’s CISO, Gary Brickhouse, who said that hospital security can be broken down into three key categories: prevention, containment, and recovery. As part of the prevention piece, providers must be able to understand their overall ransomware readiness through answers to core questions:

  • What key activities are needed to prevent ransomware from getting into the environment?
  • When an attacker or virus comes through, what is in place to contain it?
  • What strategies are needed to make the attack less impactful?
  • What systems and devices must be recovered first?

Read More HERE.