By Dan Hounsell

Cyber attacks and other threats to valuable patient data housed by healthcare organizations show no sign of slowing down after data breaches skyrocketed 55 percent in 2020. Now, two federal agencies have mounted a campaign to help healthcare IT managers say ahead of the threat.

Since the start of 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have issued several warnings about malicious actors exploiting software vulnerabilities to extort companies, according to Becker’s Hospital Review.

To keep hospital IT systems safe, CISA recommends the following measures to reduce the frequency of cyberattacks and protect valuable patient information from emerging cyberattack campaigns. Recommendations include:

• Regularly backup data and have password protections for backup copies offline, and ensure critical data is not able to be modified or deleted from the network it is on.
• Implement network segmentation by splitting the network into subnetworks.
• Require administrator credentials to install software.