Hospitals in rural America increasingly targeted by ransomware (opens in a new tab) Threat actors, experts said at a Senate hearing this Thursday.
Every web scoopthe most pressing sentiment at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on March 16 was that healthcare organizations in these regions are attractive targets due to a lack of qualified cybersecurity personnel and other resources such as staff .
Witnesses did say, however, that private industry groups and federal government agencies, such as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), are flooding the industry with information on how to address the growing ransomware problem.
pursuit of data
Kate Pierce, senior virtual information security officer at cybersecurity firm Fortified Health Security, is asking for more funding for healthcare organizations to be better able to put theory into practice.
“We’re also seeing cybercriminals shift their focus to small and rural hospitals, a group that’s lagging behind in strengthening defenses,” Pierce said. “Our rural hospitals are facing unprecedented budget constraints, with deficits of up to 30% or more, and the public health emergency is set to end in May.”
By nature, healthcare providers generate vast amounts of data about their customers, much of which is very sensitive (information about personal health and disease history, payment details, employment status, etc.). As such, they are important targets for ransomware operators and data thieves.
Just this week, high-profile cyberattacks against two healthcare providers were revealed, with more than 4.2 million user records leaked from Independent Living Systems (ILS), and more than 1 million customer and employee records from hardware and software company Zoll Medical compromised. steal.
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