With the advent of IT in Healthcare and the increased use of technology and computers to store and manage patients’ data, healthcare organizations continually face evolving cyber threats. Technology has continuously introduced new challenges to the healthcare industry, and hackers have taken note. Health information is valuable in the black market, and it is now more critical than ever for healthcare organizations to protect themselves from cyberattacks. The more a healthcare organization relies on technology, the more vulnerable it becomes to a cyberattack without a proper safety infrastructure. The patient’s safety and privacy are so jeopardized.
Healthcare has seen a significant increase in coverage and connectivity with the growing application of mobile devices, telemedicine, and health technology. 12.5 million records were breached containing medical and patient information in 2021. (Source – https://cit.cyberpeaceinstitute.org/)
The cyber threats and security vulnerabilities to healthcare facility data can jeopardize patient protected health information (PHI), distract healthcare professionals, as well as potentially harm its reputation within your community.
Protected Harbor presents a 10-step checklist that Healthcare IT professionals can implement to overcome the cyber security challenges:
Understand your Network Map:
IT professionals in the healthcare industry employ several technologies to identify the devices and data on their networks. By doing this, they will know what unknown and unauthorized devices are connected to the network and which data is more prone to vulnerabilities. Using such technology will also restrict unwanted devices from accessing the network or data.
Update All Office Software:
It is essential for Healthcare IT professionals to ensure that all the software and operating systems throughout the organization are up to date and maintained as cyber attackers may try to invade the system via previously found weakness or bug in the software. Security maintenance and software updates must be done regularly.
Improve Your VPN Encryption:
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an excellent way to hide the information that your computer sends or receives. You may prevent hackers from receiving any information about your network by encrypting it, even if they are monitoring your computers, by encrypting it.
Move to a Virtual Server:
By moving to a virtual server, you can better control who can access your data, information, and systems. Furthermore, virtualization provides efficient access to shared records, increased security, and an easy transition to mobiles.
Use Effective EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response Tools):
The EDR tools detect any attackers trying to evade a healthcare system. The Healthcare IT Professionals should use practical EDR tools to ensure that the system is protected from attackers and any hacking attempts are appropriately tackled.
Conduct Regular Audits:
The IT Administrators in healthcare organizations should conduct regular audits from time to time. They should make sure that any new information is added or the authorized users update any existing data. The users are creating strong passwords that are hard to crack, and access should be reviewed so that the previous employees could not access the patients’ data.
Install Remote Wiping and Disabling on all Mobile Medical Devices:
The Remote Wiping or disabling enables you to remotely remove or deactivate any accounts on mobile devices. The Healthcare IT Professionals should install some Remote Wiping tools on all the portable medical devices to erase the data from the devices if they get misplaced or stolen.
Isolated Backup and Validate the Backup:
Isolated backups ensure that ransomware does not infect your backup repository. If this happened, it would be a very horrible day, and it can happen right now. Many backup tools mount volumes to infected workstations, backup to this mount point, and then unmount.
The technique for creating isolated backups varies by product, but the most critical step is to make sure the backup repositories aren’t accessed like a filesystem. To put it another way, backup tools that mount repositories or target systems should be avoided. There are two aspects that must be safeguarded. The repository is one thing, and the backup server is another.
The remote backup should be validated from time to time to maintain an updated status of the data. When you have a remote backup, you can quickly recover all your data even if the local backup has been affected by a cyberattack.
Use Two Factor Authentication:
The passwords can easily be guessed or hacked by attackers. The Two Factor Authentication requires that the user enter two or more factors to authenticate himself before accessing any computer, network, or system. Whenever someone tries to make changes in the existing data or add new information to the system, the system should authenticate the user through two-factor authentication. Healthcare IT professionals should try to implement the Two Factor Authentication.
Use Professional Services:
To achieve more cyber security and tackle any issues you face regarding the safety of your data and system, you should seek professional help and assign the task of managing the system security to some external agency. This way, you will be able to achieve a system that is less prone to any attacks.
Pro Tip: Use Protected Harbor:
The Protected Harbor is a data center that provides you with the best solutions to tackle most of your healthcare organization’s information system and networks issues. It protects your data centers from attacks, outages, and downtime in the best ways possible.
The Protected Harbor offers you:
- Enhanced Security
- Quick Access Anytime
- Reduced Downtime
- Work in Realtime
Furthermore, it offers Free IT Consultation for you to get better advice. You can choose whatever payment plan suits you the most. The Protected Harbor provides the services at the most reasonable price. So, why compromise your data security to save some money? Visit www.protectedharbor.com now and choose the best plan or consult the IT specialists for free!
Conclusion:
In a nutshell, this passage suggests the best yet most effective techniques to prevent any cyber-attacks and minimize the security threats that a Healthcare organization may face regarding its information system or the network. By following the guidelines provided in this passage, you will achieve a highly secure information system. This way, your data will be more protected from any unauthorized access or cybercriminals.