10 biggest weaknesses of cybersecurity
On this article you will learn 10 biggest weaknesses of cybersecurity It became painfully clear in 2016 that hackers had found their prime target within the healthcare industry. They hit hard within the early months of the year with massive ransomware attacks that disabled entire health systems, then just kept punching. But it didn’t stop with ransomware: Hacking, theft, attacks on third-party business associates – the list goes on and on. By the top of the year, it had been apparent the healthcare industry features a great distance to travel when it involves cybersecurity.
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Human error.
“People became an enormous attack surface,” McMillan said. Attackers find careless or unsuspecting users and feed on those weaknesses to infiltrate systems with ransomware and other hacking attempts.
IoT and outdated technology.
The huge DDoS attack on DYN that pack up some major websites, stemmed from unprotected digital cameras. In doing so, it shed like on IoT weaknesses thanks to what Scott called a “Frankenstein method of security” that would affect patient safety. Further, computers “moldering within the backroom somewhere using outdated software or insufficient protection against attack” became an enormous issue in healthcare, said Myers. Criminals find these neglected machines with automated tools and pivot to more crucial machines within a network.
Vendors and third-party business associates.
Many of last year’s breaches stemmed from vendors – like a covered entity’s business associates. Consistent with Hepp: “These breaches illustrate the importance of thoroughly evaluating vendors and having strong business agreements in situ.”
Ransomware.
This virus is quite a nuisance: It’s disruptive to operations and may take down entire servers. “Ransomware isn’t going anywhere because it is easy to try to to, including ‘ransomware as a service,’ Scott said. “It’s a start for actors to send another, more specific attack ready to start mapping the system.”
Hacking attempts on the increase.
The reason? “Medical information is effective, both within the hands of hackers for his or her own use, also on the healthcare organizations that depend upon such information to work,” Hepp explained.
Backups, backups, backups.
“Easily accessible backups are the only most vital thing that we’d like to possess just in case of a good sort of emergencies,” Myers said. Not just to avoid paying a ransom, but also to scale back system downtimes and outages.
Cyber-hygiene.
“Awareness training must be more relevant, provided more often and include experiential opportunities,” McMillan said. Architecture, segmentation of networks, hardening and patching of systems and other areas also got to be tightened up. But Scott felt he hasn’t seen much progress within the industry in best practices that might “thwart 99 percent of these social engineering attacks.”
Cybercrime as an industry.
Cybercrime is profitable and healthcare may be a lucrative target, McMillan said. The industry relies heavily on its systems, making it a major target for extortion.
Contingency planning and risk management.
“Contingency and disaster recovery plans are of important importance, if a system outage occurs or to mitigate the consequences of a breach,” Hepp said. McMillian added: The industry needs “real plans with actionable steps that address worst case scenarios. We’d like to treat the enterprise and data as critical components of the mission.”
The necessity for partnerships.
“Most healthcare organizations do not have the resources or expertise to execute their cybersecurity strategy successfully alone,” McMillan said. “Partnering smartly can help fill those gaps and supply added benefits in greater knowledge and due diligence.” From a political standpoint, Scott said these silos are protected for much too long. weaknesses of cybersecurity
