5 Major Hospital Hacks: Horror Stories from the Cybersecurity Frontlines

From IEEE Spectrum:

In real-world war, combatants typically don’t attack hospitals. In the cyber realm, hackers have no such scruples. “We’re attacked about every 7 seconds, 24 hours a day,” says John Halamka, CIO of the Boston hospital Beth Israel Deaconess.

Source: 5 Major Hospital Hacks: Horror Stories from the Cybersecurity Frontlines – IEEE Spectrum

Medical and dental cyber attacks are on the increase. In part this is due to the relatively poor security most medical dental office have in place. As juicer cyber targets such as banks and department stores harden themselves against attack medical systems are seen as an easier alternative. In addition medical records are often what are referred to as Fullz. That is a complete data set that is of most value on the identity theft black market.

The five attacks listed in the article include Ransomware. This is becoming a much bigger problem and several hospitals have been forced to pay up to retrieve their data. Another example was a fake doctor’s site that was so well done doctors would log in thinking they were logging in to the actual hospital site. Of course once they entered their credentials the cyber thieves had their login and password and could easily enter the actual hospital site.

The article comments are interesting as well.