Cyber Insurer Offers Some Ransomware Insights

MedStar Health's 10 hospitals, and several other North American hospitals, have fallen prey to malware attacks in recent weeks.

The attacks, many involving ransomware, highlight why it's so important for healthcare organizations to take critical steps to avoid becoming the next victim, says technology expert Craig Musgrave of The Doctors Company, a provider of cyber insurance and medical liability coverage.

"The No. 1 issue is social engineering; it's the employee negligence," Musgrave says in an interview with Information Security Media Group. All healthcare organizations "should be providing training for all employees .... [because] over 80 percent of the attacks are made possible by human error where they'll click on a link or open an email attachment. If we can train the staff to avoid downloading [suspicious files] or bringing USB devices into the systems, then that's going to cut out a lot of the [ransomware] events that are happening."

But if an employee does make the mistake of clicking on an attachment that launches malware, healthcare organizations must take swift steps to mitigate the impact, he says.

"From the technical standpoint, the IT department needs to be making sure they have the appropriate controls in place around firewalls, application whitelisting and ... intrusion detection," he says.

"You need to be able to detect that something is going on very quickly so that you can stop it from spreading across the organization," Musgrave explains. "Once you're at that point where you can isolate [an infected] computer and take it off the network, then it gets down to how good are your backups, and can you restore systems as quick as possible."

Some hospitals have been able to recover from ransomware attacks without paying extortionists because they had well-prepared backups that enabled them to restore systems and data reasonably swiftly, he says. But other hospitals have had a more difficult struggle because the ransomware spread to main computer systems within the organization, making it more challenging to mitigate the attack, he says.

Hospital Attacks

In February, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in California confirmed that it paid extortionists a $17,000 bitcoin ransom to unlock its data, which was maliciously encrypted by extortionists using ransomware.

But some other hospitals battling recent ransomware attacks, including Chino Valley Medical Center and Desert Valley Hospital in California, have confirmed that that they were able to recover from the attacks without paying ransoms.

DataBreachToday:

« German Police Catch Suspect in Global Cyber Crime Operation
The Delayed FinTech Revolution »

Infosecurity Europe
CyberSecurity Jobsite
Perimeter 81

Directory of Suppliers

Authentic8

Authentic8

Authentic8 transforms how organizations secure and control the use of the web with Silo, its patented cloud browser.

DigitalStakeout

DigitalStakeout

DigitalStakeout enables cyber security professionals to reduce cyber risk to their organization with proactive security solutions, providing immediate improvement in security posture and ROI.

Alvacomm

Alvacomm

Alvacomm offers holistic VIP cybersecurity services, providing comprehensive protection against cyber threats. Our solutions include risk assessment, threat detection, incident response.

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North Infosec Testing (North IT)

North IT (North Infosec Testing) are an award-winning provider of web, software, and application penetration testing.

IT Governance

IT Governance

IT Governance is a leading global provider of information security solutions. Download our free guide and find out how ISO 27001 can help protect your organisation's information.

PortSwigger

PortSwigger

PortSwigger's Burp Suite is an integrated platform for performing security testing of web applications.

KPN Security

KPN Security

KPN Security is the largest and most complete provider of IT security services in the Netherlands.

Avatao

Avatao

Avatao is an online training platform for building secure software, offering a rich library of hands-on IT security exercises for software engineers to teach secure programming.

London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA)

London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA)

LORCA's mission is to support the most promising cyber security innovators in growing solutions to meet the most pressing industry challenges and build the UK’s international cyber security profile.

Farsight Security

Farsight Security

Farsight Security provides the world’s largest real-time actionable threat intelligence on how the Internet is changing.

PSYND

PSYND

PSYND is a Swiss consultancy company based in Geneva specialized in CyberSecurity and Identity & Access Management.

ST Engineering

ST Engineering

ST Engineering is a leading provider of trusted and innovative cybersecurity solutions.

Cloudsine

Cloudsine

Cloudsine (formerly Banff Cyber Technologies) is a cloud technology company specializing in cloud adoption, security and innovation.

Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS)

Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS)

Kaspersky addresses all the cybersecurity needs of industrial organizations in its Kaspersky Industrial CyberSecurity (KICS) portfolio.

Symptai Consulting

Symptai Consulting

Symptai Consulting is a leading Cyber Security, Digital Transformation and Anti-Money Laundering firm serving the Caribbean and the wider world.

Apono

Apono

Apono enables DevOps and security teams to manage access to sensitive cloud assets and data repositories in a frictionless and compliant way.

iSPIRAL IT Solutions

iSPIRAL IT Solutions

iSPIRAL is a leading regulatory technology software provider delivering state-of-art AML, KYC, Risk and Compliance solutions.

Safe Decision

Safe Decision

Safe Decision is an information technology company offering Cyber Security, Network, and Infrastructure Services and Solutions.

iomart Group

iomart Group

iomart is a cloud computing and IT managed services business providing secure hybrid cloud, network connectivity, data management, and digital workplace capability.

Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Institute (SVCSI)

Silicon Valley Cybersecurity Institute (SVCSI)

SVCSI aims to investigate, develop, and promote technical excellence and the best security practices for dependable and secure systems and applications.

Terra Security

Terra Security

Terra Security is the first agentic-AI platform built for web application penetration testing.