In March, due to the coronavirus pandemic, employees around the world switched to work from home over the Internet. This was followed by an increasing number of hacker attacks on systems that connect computers to company servers. Among the most endangered were the Kovid hospital.
IT security experts organized "Red Goat", a group for free help against hackers, during the corona.
At the beginning of the pandemic, hackers were the so-called Ransomware programs tried to access data and blackmail hospitals by sending so-called fishing emails with false instructions to medical staff. When hospitals procured equipment in the midst of the pandemic, they set up fake companies to sell medical equipment and thus fraudulently obtained large sums.
Since the beginning of last year, there have been more than 200 IT attacks on health systems in America, and hackers have obtained the health data of about 500 patients.
Those companies paid more than $ 400 per patient to get their health data back, and more than $ 1.7 million for advertisements to repair their compromised reputation.
Kaspersky CEO for North America Rob Cataldo says that health organizations can do much more in educating and raising employee awareness, drafting regulations and protocols, so that employees know what to do if they find something or suspect something.
"Those companies must improve the protection of their devices, but, more importantly, they must inform the employees that they have set up protection systems, so that they know how to protect patient data and their company," Cataldo pointed out.
There is no secure future without a protocol in the event of a cyber attack
Most hospitals in the world are also digitalized on the Internet, and they do not have protocols in case of cyber attacks, nor training for employees. Usually, only the administrator takes care of the patient's health data, who, in addition to his job, does not have time for IT security, and is not even trained for that job. "Employees in companies should have regular security awareness training, because it is not a question of their personal safety but also the safety of their company," warned Dimitri Galov, a cyber security analyst.
According to him, we must have more educational programs for children and students: "They will live in such a world where they will have more and more technology and know how to use it correctly, safely and safely since childhood, that's good, that's my opinion." Experts recommend that healthcare institutions protect their business network with VPNs and strong passwords, that they regularly update security software, and use encryption or data encryption to protect against unauthorized access to business devices. It is also obligatory to always have fresh back-up files in case of an attack, as well as to store data not only on hard disks but also on cloud platforms.
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