4 out of 5 physicians have experienced a cybersecurity attack. Is your practice safe?
Cyber-attacks on medical practices are on the rise, and they aren’t just targeting huge providers. Small hospitals and practices are facing a rising wave of attacks:
- In 2016, a private hospital suffered a ransomware attack which froze all computer systems. This shut down the hospital, and patients had to be transferred to nearby health care institutions. After a week, the hospital paid a $17,000 ransom to regain full operational control.
- An orthopedic practice was hacked via a breach of a software vendor’s log-in credentials. This breach put a half-million people at risk of identity theft, and 500 patient profiles appeared for sale on the dark web, leaving names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other personal health information (PHI) exposed.
60% of small businesses go out of business within six months of a cyber-attack. But your healthcare organization is more than just a business — patients trust you to safeguard their medical records. Having weak cybersecurity measures could result in more than just financial damage:
- Regulatory fines: HIPAA treats data breaches as a violation, and fines can reach up to $1.5 million.
- Patient lives at risk: Hackers can access your computer network and shut down networked devices such as heart monitors, putting your patients in grave danger.
The threat is real. The average cost of a data breach for a healthcare organization is $2.2 million. What can you do to secure your organization?
- Enforce email security. Implementing a quality spam filter will enable your organization to detect email with malicious content and links. Training your staff to recognize suspicious emails and use multifactor authentication will help detect and prevent phishing and malware.
- Protect yourself from ransomware. Implementing an endpoint protection system can harness powerful machine learning to protect against ransomware attacks.
- Implement a state-of-the-art firewall system. A strong firewall serves as a “first line of defense”, by blocking unsolicited traffic from intruding into your network.
- Backup your data. Frequent and regular backups of your organization’s data can allow your organization to recover quickly in case of any security incidents.
Don’t wait for a breach to hit your company. Executech’s new Threat Detection & Prevention Essentials package provides all-in-one managed security services and is tailored for your organization’s IT budget.
At Executech, healthcare is one of our areas of specialization, and we have served hundreds of healthcare clients with their IT and cybersecurity needs. Work with us and secure your healthcare practice today!
