Ransomware Attacks Negatively Impact Patient Treatment Outcomes
Date:
October 18, 2023
A new survey from the Ponemon Institute reveals that as many 88% of organizations experienced an average of 40 attacks in the past 12 months, and healthcare providers are in the crosshairs.
Of those surveyed. 54% said their organization suffered a ransomware attack, up from 41% in 2022, yet only 48% said ransomware was key concern versus 60% in last year’s study.
Nevertheless, 68% said ransomware attacks resulted in a disruption to patient care, and 43% said data exfiltration during the attack also negatively impacted patient care, with 46% noting increased mortality rates and 38% noting more complications in medical procedures following an attack.
Takeaway: Ransomware attacks are the biggest threat facing organizations today, and healthcare providers have been hit particularly hard.
CISA released updated guidelines for K-12 organizations, but guidelines do not provide any additional resources or help education organizations stem the tide of attacks:
- Ransomware attack on SMP Health forced the organization to cease operations and close the St. Margaret’s Health facility
- Ransomware attack on Prospect Medical Holdings forced the suspension of services at emergency rooms, cancelled medical procedures, downed billing systems, and caused ambulances to be diverted at multiple healthcare facilities in several states
- Ransomware attack against MCNA Dental Insurance exposed the personal information of nearly nine million patients in one of the largest breaches of health information ever
Legacy security tools were simply not designed to address the unique threat that ransomware presents, and this is why we keep seeing destructive ransomware attacks circumvent these traditional security solutions.
Ransomware operators continue to victimize healthcare providers because the sector typically lacks the appropriate budgets and staff to maintain a reasonable security posture.
Criminal ransomware groups know that the impact of an attack against healthcare organizations does not just disrupt everyday business, it directly affects the lives of their patients.
Halcyon.ai is the industry’s first dedicated, adaptive security platform that combines multiple advanced proprietary prevention engines along with AI models focused specifically on stopping ransomware – talk to a Halcyon expert today to find out more. Halcyon also publishes a quarterly RaaS and extortion group reference guide, Power Rankings: Ransomware Malicious Quartile.
