Cybersecurity responsibility for healthcare is essential to figuring to lessen the chance of a cyberattack to your organization. In a terrifying turn of events, health care facilities have emerged as one of the top targets for cyber attacks. A cyber attack is any coordinated effort to access sensitive information fraudulently, disrupt the administration of services, or disable essential internal systems. One alarming instance of this trend transpired in Vermont, where ransomware cost a hospital an estimated $63 million.
Cybersecurity Responsibility
As these attacks continue to rise, healthcare boards must develop a strategy to combat the problem and implement protections. Establishing cybersecurity responsibility is the first step to neutralizing the threat.
Identify the Cyber Threat
The first step to mitigating a cyber threat is identifying and understanding the potential harm. Unfortunately, many types of cyber threats should be on a healthcare board’s radar. These may include ransomware attacks, phishing, and distributed denial of services attacks (DDoS). Also, each of these types of attacks is different and has consequences, so healthcare boards should become familiar with them — and, more importantly, how to prevent them.
Take Accountability for Security
Who is responsible for healthcare cybersecurity? Keeping a healthcare facility safe and secure is not any one person or entity’s responsibility. Although a healthcare board must take accountability for the safety of its facilities, every staff member in those facilities must do the same. Thus, many security breaches occur because staff members were not careful to protect their credentials or fell prey to a phishing attack. Healthcare boards can take responsibility for preventing these incidents by investing in training for all staff and reinforcing facilities’ security infrastructures.
Equip Facilities With Defense
One possible way to minimize the risk of cyber attacks is to equip healthcare facilities with an effective defense against the attacks. Consequently, there will be many indications that an attack may be underway, such as malfunctioning software, missing files, prolonged internet connection, or credentials that are no longer working. Staff members should train to be on the lookout for these phenomena so that if a cyber attack is underway, it can be intercepted and stopped. Then, equipping facility staff members with knowledge is the most effective way to defend against the risk of cyber attacks.
Minimize All Related Risks
A cyber attack may devastate its target on its target, causing sensitive information to be compromised and essential processes to be interrupted. Subsequently, in a healthcare setting, the consequences are clear — patients will die. Indeed, cyber attacks have contributed to an increased mortality rate in affected healthcare facilities, so healthcare boards must develop a plan of action to prevent this outcome. When it comes to cybersecurity for healthcare, a healthcare cybersecurity insurance policy is one of the best investments you can make.
