Like many companies today, those in the health care sector are concerned about managing cybersecurity risks. There are a number of actions you can take to improve your risk awareness and cybersecurity.
Start with a strategy
What are the threats to your digital assets? As an organization, you’ll need to determine what your cybersecurity priorities are and put resources into ensuring that these priorities are met. Conducting internal and external risk assessments as to where your current measures are working, and where they are lacking, will help you determine the steps you need to take to safeguard your data.
“Developing a cyber risk management strategy will help to outline any threats you may be facing and identify potential security issues.”
– Ben Draper, Chief Information Officer, MSP Corp
Monitor your systems
Closely monitoring your systems will allow you to have a quick response in the event you are hacked. Recent studies have shown that sensitive data regarding clinic testing in Canada was able to be accessed without any detection. Healthcare organizations need to put proactive plans and internal procedures in place to ensure continuous monitoring of their systems for abnormal activity. The organization must also scrutinize what data is being shared with third-party contractors and take steps to manage any risks.
Training staff, testing systems
Awareness training is key in preventing staff from falling for sophisticated attacks or giving unauthorized personnel access to sensitive data.
Hackers often gain access to healthcare organizations’ internal networks through targeted phishing emails. Once in, they’ll connect to unauthorized devices and get remote access to internal systems. Steps to combat this include conducting phishing tests to detect problems, monitoring for leaks, and training to staff about security measures.
“According to the Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report, 65 per cent of cybersecurity breaches had confirmed data disclosure. These breaches were primarily caused by miscellaneous errors, privilege misuse, and web applications.”
– Ben Draper, Chief Information Officer, MSP Corp
Find and fix any problems
One way to stop hackers is to find your weaknesses and fix them before they can be exploited. Once you’ve strengthened your system, conducting periodic vulnerability assessments is recommended. In addition, penetration testing will help identify most of the flaws that can expose your data.
It starts at the top
The senior leaders within the organization must be engaged in creating an environment of cyber resilience and then communicating this to all staff. In order to establish this top-down approach to cyber and privacy risks, the board needs to mandate it and management needs to enable staff to implement it.
Plan for the worst
Even with a solid strategy in place, proper training and relentless testing, your healthcare organization may still end up as the victim of a cyber attack. This is why having a backup and disaster recovery plan is critical to protecting your sensitive data and allowing you to continue post-attack.
About MSP Corp
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