How Healthcare Can Win the Battle for Cyber-Security | Antivirus Software

Healthcare has been one of the most dynamic areas of cybercrime, and not just since COVID and the most recent ransomware attacks. In the opinion of Vectra AI, three key insights into cyberattacks in the healthcare sector have emerged in recent years :

1.    The real threat already lies in the healthcare networks themselves in the form of the abuse of privileged access.

2.    The huge increase in IoT devices in healthcare creates risks.

3.    Much of the attacks are due to negligence, abuse, and lack of security awareness on the part of insiders.

By default, many people have access to patient medical information. That makes it very easy and perhaps a little tempting for some to take advantage of the situation. Internal actors are largely responsible for the loss of health data. This can be employees who illegally access patient data out of curiosity or to commit identity fraud. While security leaders in other industries are concerned about outside cyberattacks, healthcare is paying attention to internal threats.

IoT Devices on The Rise

The advancing spread of the Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare is not exactly helpful when it comes to security. These medical devices produce huge amounts of data about every patient, and most clinics have no way of centralizing and monitoring these devices.

The IoT could become an attractive target for attackers. There are many devices out there, nobody is monitoring them, and there are no safeguards. There have been cases where attacks began with authentication using standard administrator passwords and the stealthy use of IoT resources to operate botnets and then escalated. This extends to the complete destruction of IoT devices by deleting their hard drives. While recovery is sometimes possible, the overall impact is far greater when these devices are used in critical care.

 

Recurring Challenges

Based on the feedback Vectra AI receives from healthcare organizations, several recurring challenges become apparent:

·         Lack of safety experts: a specialist can only do a certain amount of work in one day. Healthcare safety experts are often supposed to do more than is humanly possible.

·         Lack of money: It is difficult to hire more staff because healthcare institutions have slim budgets Their job is to increase operational efficiency and do more with what little they have.

·         Lack of transparency: Many IoT devices in connection with the free flow of patient data in the network create massive internal blind spots when it comes to what is happening. The greatest threat lies within the network, which security measures at the network perimeter are blind to.

Reduce the Time It Takes to Discover Threats

If it takes weeks, months, or years for a data security incident to be discovered, it indicates that healthcare is losing the battle. The answer lies in 360-degree visibility within the network - across cloud, data center, IoT, and corporate networks - as well as in real-time detection of attackers and the prioritization of all detected threats. Security experts then know where to start.

To this end, the challenges already mentioned must be addressed. There are four ways to get there:

1.    Eliminate manual, time-consuming work of security analysts by automating and prioritizing the threats detected.

2.    Lowering the high skill barriers previously required to hunt down cyber threats.

3.    Bear in mind that “everything” is interconnected, making it an easy target and a huge target.

4.    Provide visibility within the network to see the attackers, where they are, what they are doing, and identify the compromised hosts and workloads.

Adopt the best antivirus software to prevent cyber risk.

This basic approach is advocated by a growing number of health safety professionals. Many are expanding the capabilities of their security teams with AI-derived machine learning models. This makes it possible to automate the early detection of cyber attackers, accelerate the response to incidents, carry out conclusive investigations, and react more efficiently to threats. The health service can win this battle, as successful practical examples already show. Using a platform for Network Detection and Reaction (NDR), hospitals can protect their network and reduce risks for hospital operations.