Cybersecurity Advocacy Resources, Thought Leadership and Latest News

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Cybersecurity vulnerabilities and intrusions pose risks for every hospital, and its reputation.

While there are significant benefits for care delivery and organizational efficiency from the expanded use of networked technology, Internet-enabled medical devices and electronic databases for clinical, financial and administrative operations, networked technology and greater connectivity also increase exposure to possible cybersecurity threats that require hospitals to evaluate and manage new risks in the context of federal privacy rules and related polices.

Hospitals can prepare and manage such risks by viewing cybersecurity not as a novel issue but rather by making it part of the hospital’s existing governance, risk management and business continuity framework.

Hospitals also will want to ensure that the approach they adopted remains flexible and resilient to address threats that are likely to be constantly evolving and multi-pronged.

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Highlights

Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices: Managing Threats and Protecting Patients

Cybersecurity threats to healthcare organizations and patient safety are real. Health IT provides critical lifesaving functions. Learn more.

HHS 405(d) Aligning Health Care Industry Security Approaches

The 405(d) Program and Task Group is a collaborative effort between industry and the federal government, which aims to raise awareness, provide vetted cybersecurity practices, and move organizations towards consistency in mitigating the current most pertinent cybersecurity threats to the sector. Learn more.

Transformation Resources Image - Woman with mask placing sticky note on bulletin board

Balancing Cybersecurity and Your Hospital’s Digital Transformation

Ransomware attacks and cybersecurity breaches are plaguing the health care field, jeopardizing patient data and the ability to deliver safe, efficient care. View the Transformation Talk.

Microsoft Releases Security Updates for ‘PrintNightmare’ Cybersecurity Vulnerability

Microsoft has released out-of-band security updates to address a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability — known as PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527) — in the Windows Print spooler service. The Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center (CERT/CC), part of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, last week reported a critical RCE vulnerability impacting the Windows Print Spooler service that allows a remote authenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with system privileges on a vulnerable system.

FBI Issues ‘Conti’ Ransomware Alert as High-impact Global Attacks Persist against Health Care and Critical Infrastructure page 1

AHA Calls on Government to Use All Elements of National Power to Disrupt Foreign Ransomware Attackers

The Federal Bureau of Investigation May 20 issued an alert regarding “Conti,” a highly disruptive ransomware variant. Attacks associated with Conti and the previously published Darkside ransomware variant are believed to be emanating from criminal networks operating from a non-cooperative foreign jurisdiction. Ransomware attacks associated with these variants have resulted in regionally disruptive impacts to critical infrastructure, including hospitals and health systems in the United States and Ireland. These ransomware attacks have delayed or disrupted the delivery of patient care and pose significant potential risks to patient safety and the communities that rely on hospitals’ availability.

AHA Testimony: Senate Hearing on Cyber Threats Amid Pandemic. John Riggi testifies before the Senate on cybersecurity threats to hospitals.

AHA Senate Testimony On Cyber Threats to Hospitals – Attacks Up, Victim Hospitals Need Government Assistance Not Blame

Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in Senate testimony John Riggi discusses increased incidences of cyber threats toward hospitals and health systems, the resulting, unique challenges confronting the health care sector, and what the federal government can and must do to help ensure appropriate mechanisms are in place to share threat information and defend the nation’s hospitals and health systems from cyber attacks.

Four possible cybersecurity risks related to Covid-19, ventilator and life support medical devices, email malware phishing campaigns and email frauds, VPN/tele-work and cloud based vulnerabilities, Telehealth vulnerabilities

Four Ways to Mitigate COVID-19 Cyber Risks

As the nation’s hospitals and health systems, physicians, caregivers and staff treat and care for patients and our communities, there are others in the world seeking to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic for financial gain. Particularly, cyber criminals. View more.

Why & How to Incorporate Cyber Risk Management Into Enterprise Risk Management

Ransomware attacks on hospitals are not white collar crimes, they are threat-to-life crimes because they directly threaten a hospital’s ability to provide patient care, which puts patient safety at risk. That development was reinforced during the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, when phishing emails and other cyber attacks on hospitals increased because cyber criminals treated the pandemic as an opportunity to exploit, victimize and profit. View more.

Ransomware Attacks on Hospitals Have Changed

National cyber security center notice of further TTP's associated with SVR cyber actors

Advisory: Further TTPs Associated with SVR Cyber Actors

This report provides further details of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) associated with SVR cyber actors. SVR cyber actors are known and tracked in open source as APT29, Cozy Bear, and the Dukes. UK and US governments recently attributed SVR’s responsibility for a series of cyber-attacks, including the compromise of SolarWinds and the targeting of COVID-19 vaccine developers. Alongside this attribution, the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an advisory detailing the exploits most recently used by the group. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CISA also issued a joint report providing information on the SVR’s cyber tools, targets, techniques, and capabilities. Download the PDF.

White Paper: Strategic Threat Intelligence: Preparing for the Next “Solarwinds” Event

As the impact of the SolarWinds incident is still being investigated and discussed, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and Health-ISAC collaborated on this strategic intelligence analysis to identify what other “SolarWinds” like issues might be lurking in enterprise networks. The paper is meant for all audiences, non-technical and technical, as we present strategic level decision elements that senior leaders including C-Suite Executives can use to help understand the risks involved with certain enterprise IT systems in their network environment. We then provide detailed technical analysis and recommendations for IT and information security teams to help address immediate concerns by providing tactical mitigations and recommendations. For our technical audience, this paper presents a detailed analysis of characteristics that allowed the SolarWinds incident to affect multiple industries, organizations, and systems. Download the PDF.

Hackers Target on Premises Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities

Cyber attackers are using Microsoft Exchange Server vulnerabilities to access Exchange server email accounts on an organization’s premises and install malware to facilitate long-term access to victim environments, View Microsoft's announcement..

Joint Cybersecurity Advisory PDF cover view of city in background

Joint Cybersecurity Advisory: Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector

This advisory describes the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by cybercriminals against targets in the Healthcare and Public Health Sector (HPH) to infect systems with Ryuk ransomware for financial gain. Download the PDF.

Doctors with stethoscopes huddled together over a laptop in an office to assess data

The Importance of Cybersecurity in Protecting Patient Safety

Health care organizations continually face evolving cyberthreats that can put patient safety at risk. That’s why I advise hospital C-suite and other senior leaders not to view cybersecurity as a purely technical issue falling solely under the domain of their IT departments View more.

hacker in hooded sweatshirt in a dark room using an electronic tablet

Theft of Intellectual Property: Threats to Medical Research and Innovation

There is growing concern among the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Congress and some leaders in the health sector about the threat of theft of U.S. intellectual property (IP) by foreign governments. View more.