From medication pumps to pacemakers, people depend on lifesaving devices to live their healthiest possible lives and manage chronic ailments. Many of those patients likely hear about cybercriminals orchestrating massive data breaches, and might get concerned about one of those incidents compromising their information.However, they probably haven’t considered the hackers might target the devices in their bodies or the ones they otherwise use for better well-being.Hospitals Must Pay Attention to
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Healthcare Cyber Hygiene: 5 Best Practices to Protect Patient Data
Hospital-acquired infections and data breaches may have vastly different causes, but they have one thing in common—they put healthcare organizations and patients at risk. The “pathogens” which cause data breaches originate both externally and internally—but practicing healthcare cyber hygiene can reduce or eliminate their “infection."Patient data has high value—to others. According to Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, healthcare has the second highest number of breaches after
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4 Leading Health IT Trends That Will Continue in 2018
Several notable trends from 2017 will continue to impact the health information technology (HIT) industry in the new year. Ransomware tops the list, particularly after this May’s WannaCry worldwide cyberattack, followed closely by increased awareness of electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) as an “upstream solution” to battling the nation’s mounting opioid abuse crisis. Beyond the ongoing development of these two leading trends, HIT experts are also asking two key questions as
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Survey: 4 in 5 Physicians Experienced Cyberattacks In Their Clinical Practices
More than four in five U.S. physicians (83 percent) have experienced some form of a cybersecurity attack, according to new research released today by Accenture and the American Medical Association (AMA). The key findings reveal physicians see need for the healthcare industry to increase cybersecurity support for medical practices in their communities. More than half (55 percent) of the physicians were very or extremely concerned about future cyberattacks in their practice. In addition,
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Ransomware Tops ECRI Institute’s 2018 Top 10 Health Technology Hazards List
Ransomware and other cybersecurity threats to healthcare delivery has topped ECRI Institute’s Top 10 Health Technology Hazards for 2018 list. Ransomeware are potential patient safety crises that can disrupt healthcare delivery operations, placing patients at risk. Ransomware attacks can lead to canceled procedures and altered workflows (e.g., reverting to paper records). They can also damage equipment and systems, expose sensitive data, and force closures of entire care units. Ultimately, they
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Why It’s Time for Hospitals to Become Immune to Ransomware
Editor's Note: Greg Maudsley is a cyber security expert at Menlo Security, a Silicon Valley-based cyber security company that protects organizations from cyber attack by eliminating the threat of malware.Hospitals and other healthcare organizations (HCOs) are increasingly singled out by cyber criminals for ransomware and other attacks. Not only are patients’ sensitive records being targeted, but also – as the FBI warns – their intellectual property or credit card information. The
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5 Lessons Learned From The WannaCry Ransomware Attacks for Hospitals
Editor's Note: Richard Sullivan is chief government and revenue officer for Medsphere Systems Corporation, the solution provider for the OpenVista electronic health record.Will information technology ever realize an imagined future where security is strong enough, reliable enough, secure enough to block any and all attacks?It’s a dubious proposition made more uncertain by the recent WannaCry ransomware incident that started a couple of weeks ago and continued around the globe for several days.
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How can Health IT Improve Security and Restore Trust?
Editor's Note: John Smith is a Principal Solutions Architect at IT analytics company ExtraHop. Prior to joining ExtraHop, John was a Cloud Architect at both Philips and McKesson and was previously a Principal Architect at the Centers for Disease Control.Hardly a day goes by without news of a new cybersecurity threat or breach, and the healthcare industry is hit with more than its fair share. While unfortunate, it’s not hard to understand why. From personal health information (PHI) to insurance
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Ransomware Leads the Way in 2017’s Predicted Rise in Health Data Theft
Editor’s Note: Santosh Varughese is the President of Cognetyx, a provider of ‘Ambient Cognitive Cyber Surveillance’ to protect information assets against cyber security threats, data breaches and privacy violations. Welcome to 2017, the writing is on the wall and it didn’t take long to get there. Earlier this month Atlanta’s Emory Healthcare was hacked by the Harak1r1 the 0.2 Bitcoin Ransomware. A database from the facility’s Brain Health Center containing data from more than 200,000 patients
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Healthcare Ransomware: Why Providers Should Not Pay the Ransom
Editor's Note: Dean Wiech is the Managing Director of Tools4ever, a global provider of access management and governance solutions.Healthcare is simply in the crosshairs of some really nefarious people. You’d have to be living under a rock to have missed the comments on everything that has been happening in the sector. The daily headlines include such news as “Hospital declares State of Emergency after ransomware infection”; “Hospital pays ransom to get data back”; “Dangerous escalation in
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