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Five cybersecurity prescriptions for a healthy healthcare in 2020 – Sophos

As you may already be aware, National Doctor’s Day  is observed on 1st July 2020 to honor medical professionals. The significance of this day is not lost on us in the current scenario but in addition to taking care of patients and themselves, healthcare organizations must also have a keen eye on their cybersecurity health.

With healthcare service providers leveraging various digital tools, connected devices, automated processes and online consultations over in-person visits to the doctor to bolster patient care, data privacy and security have emerged as a major threat. According to our survey, The State of Endpoint Security Today, the healthcare sector was impacted the highest by ransomware at almost 76 percent. Data is of utmost importance for daily hospital operations, making  the protection of large amounts of personal and medical data a huge task for the healthcare industry.

Healthcare organizations must change how they view cybersecurity as cybercriminals will continue to find security gaps and exploit these weaknesses if proper steps are not taken to ensure cyber safety.

Here are five security prescriptions from Sophos to keep the healthcare industry healthy –

1. Embrace the zero trust security model

A recent report shows that in the healthcare sector more breaches are caused by internal than external threats. This can be attributed to human error, lapsed security oversight, or intentional abuse of privilege access to sensitive data and systems. By implementing a zero trust approach, healthcare organizations can introduce granular controls on network traffic. This takes away the opportunity for modern attackers and internal rogue users to leverage attacks and gain access to sensitive personal health information (PHI) while remaining under the radar.

2. Improve cyber wellness against ransomware threats

Ransomware is a devastating weapon in the hands of cybercriminals targeting healthcare, accounting for over 70% of malware outbreaks in the sector. Such attacks have brought healthcare operations to a grinding halt, paralyzed connected medical devices and systems, and encrypted healthcare records to render them inaccessible by caregivers. Sophos not only provides industry-leading anti-ransomware security but also tracks ransomware development with rigorous research from SophosLabs. Sophos Intercept X with EDR, and Sophos XG Firewall work together to disrupt and stop advanced ransomware attacks.

3. Get around the skills shortage

Lack of personnel with the appropriate cybersecurity knowledge and expertise is one of the major challenges for healthcare service providers. This is especially a headache for those who don’t have a full-time, in-house security expert. For healthcare organizations lacking cybersecurity resources Sophos offers the Managed Threat Response (MTR) service. The service provides effective monitoring and continuous risk assessment, as well as a 24/7 dedicated team of experts. Our solution goes beyond just alerts, it provides real incident response against threats, ensuring the risk is identified, contained, and that corrective action gets taken immediately.

4. Cover blind spots in your digital transformation efforts

Transacting information between patients, caregivers, insurance agencies, and other stakeholders should be seamless and secure. Software-defined networking (SD-WAN), with its flexible architecture, has emerged as a new favorite among healthcare organizations to meet these requirements. It’s crucial to provide reliable and secure access to classified healthcare data at a time when many hospitals are adopting new technologies like network-connected medical devices, telehealth,  and medical apps such as picture archiving and communication systems (PACS). Sophos, with its latest XG Firewall and SD-RED devices, makes it possible to achieve SD-WAN connectivity in line with your security and continuity goals.

5. Promote cyber awareness

Another major concern for healthcare organisation is the lack of cybersecurity education and poor data privacy awareness among employees. Having the right cybersecurity culture is important to help reduce healthcare’s high susceptibility to a wide range of sophisticated cyberattacks. Healthcare organizations should consider running regular awareness campaigns to make their employees, partners, and vendors more aware of the latest cybersecurity scams and phishing tactics, and thus be better prepared to take the right action when they encounter malware or phishing.

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