INKY | Industries | Healthcare

Healthcare: A Rich Target

The healthcare industry attracts criminals initiating business email compromise (BEC) campaigns by way of phishing attacks. Healthcare receives such unwanted attention because of its unique vulnerabilities. The healthcare ecosystem is large and diverse, with many different types of organizations — hospitals, clinics, researchers, healthcare professionals, medical staff, laboratories, patients, employers, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, insurance companies, government bodies, and others — all interacting with each other on a regular basis via email. This complexity is ripe for exploitation.

The sheer amount of value flowing through healthcare makes it a prime target for phishers. Add to that providers’ legal obligation to keep records secure and face stiff fines if patient information is breached. For pharmaceutical firms and equipment manufacturers, there’s the additional risk of a successful BEC campaign draining valuable intellectual property from the organization.

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Prying Open a Healthcare Organization.

A BEC attack against a healthcare organization begins with a phishing email that fools an individual into taking an action that allows attackers to commandeer that person's computer and use it to take control of surrounding computers on the same network.

A Close to Perfect Imitation of a Legitimate Medical Order

The best phishing emails are near-perfect replicas of legitimate ones. The most sophisticated criminals tailor phishing emails to their target, spoofing real emails that the recipient is likely to receive. These perpetrators are after high-value objectives and surveil their marks attentively to craft an effective pitch.

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The Worst Ones are Hard to See.

The most dangerous phish — the ones that can jeopardize an entire organization — have never been seen before. They’re hand-tooled. When they arrive, there is no exact template that will identify them as dangerous.

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Can you rely on your end-users to be on high-alert for all of these phishing tactics across all devices?

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: There are a number of issues at play that make the healthcare industry particularly vulnerable to phishing attacks. For one, the healthcare market collects and stores enormous amounts of personal information, which hackers can either sell on the dark web or exploit themselves. This includes all of the data you’d need for identity theft and credit card fraud, as well as banking credentials, confidential (and often very personal) medical information, and more. Secondly, hackers know that there is money in healthcare, which makes them vulnerable to ransomware attacks. Lastly, while the healthcare industry has gone to great lengths to expand its online capabilities so that doctors, insurers, and other healthcare professionals can more easily share information and provide patients with tools that can keep them healthy, many healthcare organizations are using outdated systems and are not investing in the security they need to stay protected from cybercrime.
: The healthcare industry has experienced all types of phishing attacks, from Business Email Compromise (BEC) and Zero-Day attacks to malware and account takeovers. However, one of the more popular phishing attacks the industry experiences has been data breaches. According to a ten-year study released in 2019 by a healthcare researcher, the health records of nearly 170 million people have been hacked in 1,461 reported data breaches.¹

¹Source: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190925/Healthcare-records-hacked-data-breaches-uncovered.aspx
: Sadly, as we have seen in many industries, ransomware attacks are on the rise and healthcare is no exception. Ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations cost nearly $21 billion in 2020, which includes dollars spent on lawsuits, ransoms paid, lost revenue, and costs to rebuild lost records.¹

¹Source: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/cybersecurity/ransomware-attacks-on-healthcare-organizations-cost-nearly-21b-last-year-study-finds.html
: There are three main things all organizations in the healthcare sector should do in order to protect themselves from costly phishing attacks.

1.) Invest in the systems you are using.

2.) Put simple best practices into place such as requiring strong password protection that changes frequently, establishing a cybersecure culture in the workplace, and use multi-factor authentication.

3.) Most importantly, secure the services of a third-party email security company like INKY. Few companies can offer the level of threat protection you need to prevent even the most sophisticated cyber criminals from infecting your healthcare business with malware and ransomware. INKY is the industry’s leading phishing prevention solution.

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