Ransomware Infographic: The Risks are High for Healthcare Organizations

  Cybersecurity is top of mind for every hospital IT person these days. Cyberattacks can come from a myriad of sources and expose patient data, or with ransomware, can put patients’ health at risk by blocking access to EHRs. A few facts:

• 11 million patient records have been breached so far in 2016
• Ransomware attackers often charge up to $17,000 to return access, and that cost doesn’t include the impact of downtime on your IT team and the hospital in general
• The Department of Health and Human Services recently released ransomware guidelines to help hospitals fight these insidious attacks

When it comes to ransomware, you need to get the attention of people in your department and throughout the hospital system.  We have prepared a white paper, Protecting Your Hospital from Ransomware, which covers six steps to thwart a would-be attacker. Ransomware Infographic We’ve also prepared this ransomware infographic to help you share information with colleagues and others in your healthcare system. We know how busy day-to-day IT management can be and this graphic quickly gets to the root of the matter, with common pathways of entry, and best practices to recover from a cyberattack.  Please feel free to share this with anyone you think could benefit from a little more ransomware knowledge. Communications during a Ransomware Attack Communications are vital during a ransomware attack, mean time to know (MTTK) can drastically effect outcomes. If the virus is spreading through your servers, a rapid notification system can help you protect servers and mitigate damages, possibly avoiding a full system failure.   Here’s how Everbridge can help:

• IT Alerting can notify you within seconds of a server being down
• Incident management can notify key personnel an attack is taking place and greatly speed MTTK
• Secure communications are separate from your system. So even if an attack is taking place, you still have reliable, secure, military-grade communication

You can learn more about our communications system by requesting a demo now. Resources for Infographic We went to several sources for our infographic, below is a complete list:

• http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/articles/2016-04-01/ransomware-hacks-are-a-hospital-health-it-wake-up-callhttp://www.wired.com/2011/06/the-dropped-drive-hack/
• https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA16-091A
• http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/more-half-hospitals-hit-ransomware-last-12-months
• http://www.idigitaltimes.com/ransomware-hitting-dozens-healthcare-organizations-why-file-encrypting-malware-523219
• http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/more-half-hospitals-hit-ransomware-last-12-months
• https://www.wired.com/2016/03/ransomware-why-hospitals-are-the-perfect-targets/
• http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/tips-protecting-hospitals-ransomware-cyber-attacks-surge

Background

• 8 Hospitals hit this year: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/slideshow/ransomware-see-8-hospitals-already-hit-2016
• HHS Ransomware & HIPAA guidelines: http://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/RansomwareFactSheet.pdf