By Daniel Smith

Whether it’s the automotive, retail or healthcare industry, if there is money to be made hackers will find a way to exploit the systems.

In 2018 alone, more than 69 percent of healthcare providers reported experiencing at least one cyberattack. Last year, the healthcare industry dominated news with an ever-growing list of breaches and attacks. Aetna, CarePlus, Partners Healthcare, BJC Healthcare, St. Peter’s Surgery and Endoscopy Center, ATI Physical Therapy, Inogen, UnityPoint Health, Nuance Communication, LifeBridge Health, Aultman Health Foundation, Med Associates and more recently, Nashville Metro Public Health, UMC Physicians, and LabCorp Diagnostics have all disclosed or settled major breaches.

While many industries experience attacks, healthcare remains the most potentially damaging to its victims. Denial of service attacks could lead to power outages at hospitals, risking the lives of patients and the hospital’s reputation. Even without the detrimental stakes of life and death, service interruptions can cost hospitals millions in revenue. Despite the rise in popularity of cyber-focused policy in the U.S. there remains no indication that attacks on healthcare companies will slow down anytime soon.

The cost of a healthcare breach? Not priceless
The average cost of a successful cyberattack on a health system can cost nearly 1.5 million dollars. Therefore, it is no surprise that ransomware remains one of the most common attacks on healthcare systems. Ransomware is a malicious software that threatens to publish or perpetually block access to a victim’s data unless a ransom is paid. There have also been cases where ransomware and malware have been delivered via drive-by downloads and comprised third party vendors. We have also seen criminals use SQL injections to steal data from medical applications as well as flooding those networks with DDoS attacks. More recently, we have seen large-scale scanning and exploitation of internet connected devices for crypto mining, some of which has been located inside medical networks. In addition to causing outages and encrypting data, these attacks have resulted in canceling elective cases, diverting incoming patients and rescheduling surgeries.

Unfortunately, with a payday that large it is hard to deter steady attacks from hackers, especially with the ease at which they can deploy malicious software. This motivation paired with the lack of sophisticated technology and overall security awareness makes this a compound issue.

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