In May 2017, the first documented ransomware assault on networked medical equipment happened. The worldwide ransomware assault WannaCry compromised radiological and other instruments in several hospitals during its height, after a software failure caused by a cyberattack on its third-party vendor’s oncology cloud service, cancer patients having radiation therapy at four healthcare institutions had to reschedule appointments.
These examples show how cyberattacks and data breaches may have a significant impact on the healthcare industry, heavily reliant on connected medical equipment. PHI (patient health information) captured and stored in these connected medical devices must be secured. Because PHI is transferred over the cloud via server-based systems, making it very susceptible to hackers.
Ransomware attacks on health care professionals have become more common, sophisticated, and severe in recent years. Individual bad actors have been supplanted as the main perpetrators by organized criminal gangs, nation-states, and military groups. Despite great effort, law enforcement and the government have been unable to stop the escalating wave of attacks on hospital devices and other key infrastructure. Medical device security will be a key part of hospital cybersecurity as ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations increase. Read more: https://bit.ly/3G0QAwV