Is Ransomware Affecting Hospitals

Ransomeware Affecting Hospitals

Ransomware is defined by Kaspersky.com as “malware that encrypts data or restricts access to a computer or mobile device. Ransomware is “cyber blackmail” that seeks to force a victim to pay a ransom in order to decrypt their data or access their system once again.” Over the past 10 years ransomware has evolved to be used with technology. Before technology evolved people were held for ransom, or to obtain secret documents. But since technology is always evolving, the term ransomware was coined.

Types of Ransomware One type of ransomware is locker ransomware (Computer Locker). This ransomware “denies access to the computer or device (symantec.com).” The purpose of locker ransomware is to “deny access to computing

The most important point for hospitals to implement is that all the staff get training in cyber security every 6 months. This keeps the staff up to date on the new trends that hackers are using and also to educate them on malware such as ransomware and phishing. Many people don’t know what these warning signs are and by educating them they can spot malware before they click on it.

2. Hospitals should purchase self-encrypting hard drives. According to beckershospitalreview.com “Self-encrypting hard drives provide Source: iamwire.com stronger protection.” Encryption “uses a complex algorithm called a cipher in order to turn normalized data (plaintext) into a series of seemingly random characters (ciphertext) that is unreadable by those without a special key in which to decrypt it (makeuseof.com).” This is a very valuable asset to hospitals because if they ever got hit with a cyber attack the hackers wouldn’t be able to see what the data

4. The last point is that no employee should use flash drives or personal emails. If someone brings a flash drive containing a document from their computer at home, malware could be attached to the document and when opened it can spread throughout the hospitals system. Using private emails should be restricted because phishing emails can come though on their emails and users could open the links and they can infect the hospitals system.

Ransomware is a very serious issue all around the world and every year people and companies pay millions of dollars to hackers. Having an effective policy to minimize the risk of an attack is critical for big companies, especially hospitals. As our dependence on technology increases in my opinion, ransomware attacks will continue to increase. Hackers will always find a flaw in the system and take advantage of it. As long as there id technology, there will be crimes against it. We just have to keep one step ahead of the criminals and try to minimize the damage they can