United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned healthcare companies operating in and around the United States about a possible ransomware cyber attack by this month end. The alert comes after many healthcare firms in the UK were left devastated after Wanna cry Ransomware attack.
Note- The healthcare industry is plagued by a myriad of cyber security related issues like data breaches, DDoS Attacks, Insider threat, business email compromise and fraud scams apart from ransomware.
FBI says that cybercrime in the healthcare industry has increased to many folds in recent years. Referring to a Dell report which was recently compiled, FBI says that hackers are seeing healthcare data as an earning resource. They say that hackers are selling health insurance credentials, bank accounts, social security numbers and counterfeit documents just for $1000 per dossier.
The risk has surged up by 70% when compared to 2013 as more and more organizations within the industry have turned away from paper-based processes to digitalization.
FBI stated that the number of successful cyber attacks in the US has grown by 144 percent in the past four years, and the rest of the world is very close behind.
Furthermore, as the cyber attackers are becoming even more sophisticated in their tactics of exploiting digital record keeping, the concerns related to cyber security have quadrupled.
And experts anticipate that cyber attacks targeting healthcare industry will continue to evolve and will set records as most of the hospitals aren’t aware of breaches and will remain vulnerable to attacks via medical devices.
The media is already doing its bit by highlighting the latest cyber attacks to the world. And we can only hope that the concerned authorities of Healthcare sector are listening!
