Cyber Attacks: Ransomware attacks against providers likely to escalate

Skilled nursing facilities, Hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, MRI/CT scan facilities, diagnostic laboratories, urology centers, physical therapists and physician practices all had one thing in usual this last year. They were victim of cyber attacks.

Market forces will not be altering any time soon, meaning they will sustain to confront an increasing number of issues, specifically ransomware attacks. No one is safe, in accordance to TrapX, a vendor of software to disrupt cyber attacks, in a latest report.

“2 primary trends have emerged with absolute clarity in the year of 2016; the continual discovery and evolution of medical device hijack and the escalation of ransomware across a broad mix of targets,” in accordance to the firm.

Most providers almost install anti-virus software and a firewall, so the majority of their infrastructure is protected, claims Anthony James, chief marketing officer at TrapX. But MEDJACK was developed to attack medical devices, which mostly operate on old versions of Microsoft Windows, so applicable patches might not be available.

Subsequently, medical devices have become a vital open door to MEDJACK attacks, and vulnerable devices involve infusion pumps, CT scanners, ventilators, heart-lung machines, dialysis machines, blood gas analyzers, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, PACS, portable c-arm X-ray machines and other devices. When TrapX representatives visit a hospital, they often always find MEDJACK or other malware on specialized medical devices.

Most of the cyber attacks can be prevented by a second-generation perimeter and second-generation endpoint defenses, but most hospitals do not have this technology, James adds.

Throughout the year of 2015, TrapX discovered MEDJACK almost everywhere. “Many hospitals don’t seem to be capable to track MEDJACK or remediate it,” in accordance to the report. “The great majority of cyber defense suites aren’t capable to trace attackers moving laterally from these hidden sites. Even when they are traced, attempting to remediate an attack in 1 medical device is mostly annoying (and futile) as other attacks propagate again almost instantly and undetected through several medical devices within the hospital, which also go untracked.”

To date, healthcare ransomware and cyber attacks are up 63% in the year of 2016, in contrast to previous year, James claims. There are so many health records being provided for sale that the charges for stolen data have plummeted. A single comprehensive health record fetches over $10; TrapX was provided a set of 3,000 records for $2,000—80% of its content was medical information, while the remaining data was Social Security, credit card and W-2 information.

So with costs no longer optimal, several hackers have shifted to using ransomware, which determines them to get high returns much quicker. While law enforcement organizations and attorneys compel providers not to pay ransom, reasoning that a hacker will merely demand payment of subsequent ransoms, major numbers of victims are paying up to get their data back, James elaborates.

The math is very easy and simple. If a hospital is attacked and doesn’t pay ransom, the agency might have to divert sufferers while it regains its data. A hospital client informed TrapX that the financial loss could be $1 million a day for each day down in immediate revenue and future business if sufferers have to go elsewhere for treatment.

“That is why individuals are paying,” James claims. The report of TrapX is available here.