A brief generated by a cybersecurity company has revealed that nearly 14 million patients in the United States have been affected by breaches in healthcare data thus far this year. The report also found that 91% of the breaches involved ransomware, which calls attention to the targeting of the country’s healthcare sector.
SonicWall based the report it generated on data from Capture Labs, which utilizes machine learning to gather and retain data on threats and attack vectors in real time.
The researchers’ analysis highlighted an increasing prominence of ransomware actors that specialized in targeting healthcare, such as ALPHV/BlackCat and LockBit. The former actor revealed it was responsible for attacking Change Healthcare earlier this year, which led to a huge data breach and millions in ransom payments.
The threat brief also underscored the frequency with which these actors exploited the critical vulnerabilities of organizations, with data suggesting that 60% of the vulnerabilities used targeted MS Exchange, a tool that is widely used in this sector. For instance, ransomware groups were found to be exploiting ProxyLogon and ProxyShell Exploit Chain vulnerabilities to obtain access to servers and introduce ransomware.
The analysis even found that sometimes the vulnerabilities are chained together to strengthen the attack.
The PaperCut and Citrix Bleed vulnerabilities are also targeted in the healthcare sector, with the researchers noting that the reactive patching of vulnerabilities or their remaining unpatched make healthcare organizations even more vulnerable to exploitation.
In their conclusion, the researchers explained that the adoption of artificial intelligence and digital tools during and after the coronavirus pandemic had increased the attack surface of healthcare organizations. They revealed that their analysis found that a considerable increase in ransomware attacks that targeted the healthcare industry had been observed since 2022. They then added that healthcare was a primary target for exploitation by cyberthreat actors because of its reliance on sensitive information and data-driven nature.
In addition, the researchers suggested that organizations implement a proactive and multilayered approach to defend themselves against these mounting threats. Continuous monitoring, strong authentication protocols and an even stronger program to manage patches could aid organizations in protecting patient data while alleviating the risk of data breaches.
This isn’t the first company to investigate the increasing threat of data breaches and ransomware in this sector either, as different government entities and private cybersecurity companies have done similar investigations.
Last year, the Office for Civil Rights under Health and Human Services revealed that they had recorded a 278% surge in ransomware. The office also recorded a 239% rise in breaches reported, most of them involving hacking.
These figures sound a warning that enterprises that specialize in leveraging healthcare data, such as HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK), need to heed and constantly improve their security systems so that cyber threats can be thwarted in advance.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to HealthLynked Corp. (OTCQB: HLYK) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/HLYK
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