If you’re in healthcare, you’re likely (painfully) aware of the February 21 cyberattack that’s disrupted the flow of claims and reimbursements for healthcare providers across the country.
And if you’re concerned about the cyberattacks lurking around the corner, you’re not alone. Cyberattacks in healthcare are on the rise. Why? Means, motive, and opportunity.
Means. The means become easier every day.
Motive. Money. According to a 2024 report from the World Health Organization, “…a third of affected health-care organizations have been willing to make ransom payments. When combined with other sources of profit, such as trading stolen PHI/ PII or security data (for example administrator login credentials), this has created an attractive return on investment for cyber-crime groups.”
Opportunity. As health systems have become dependent on digital solutions, cybersecurity risks are on the rise. The WHO says, “Sensitive information held by health services, coupled with inadequate security, makes health care infrastructure a prime target for cyber-criminals.”
This is your opportunity to strengthen your healthcare organization’s security through operational preparedness and execution.
Anticipate the Problem Before You Have One
The following is the foundation of our cybersecurity strategy and a valuable guide for any healthcare provider who wants to be ready in case of future cyberattacks:
Identify
You can’t identify what you don’t know exists. Understanding your assets is critical; this includes systems, data, people, and critical capabilities. By identifying our assets and leveraging our risk committee, we have been successful in effectively mitigating risk and improving our security program and posture.
Protect
You can’t protect without education and tooling. EnableComp cybersecurity education is accomplished through training, security culture and teamwork. Our employees are our first line of defense. — serving as a human firewall that is well-trained to detect and reject phishing attempts and scams. Additionally, we design and deploy top of class secure and resilient systems and safeguards to deter, prevent, and mitigate cyberattacks.
Detect
You can’t detect what you can’t see. Pen-testing, compromise assessments, internal and third-party audits, vulnerability scans, and access review procedures help detect vulnerabilities and suspicious activity that might indicate compromise. Extended endpoint technologies, threat hunting capabilities, active forensics, and centralized logging and alerting give us clear visibility and alerting.
Respond
You can’t respond if you don’t practice. Response is all about having solid incident management plans that have been well-rehearsed and refreshed regularly to meet the ever-changing threat landscape. We develop playbooks within our plans to address multiple scenarios that are most likely to affect our business.
Recover
You can’t recover what you don’t have. Having a robust disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) plan in place allows for a faster and more efficient recovery from a cyberattack. Our plan outlines procedures for restoring critical systems and data via dependable and secure backups.
Our Cybersecurity Strategy in Action
As a healthcare company ourselves, our Information Security experts fend off attacks daily.
When news broke of the recent Change Healthcare data breach, our Information Security Team went immediately into protection mode with our Incident Response Plan that outlines specific processes — enabling us to respond swiftly and effectively.
When we were able to confirm that our system integrity had not been compromised, our Implementation Team was able to jump into getting claims and cash flowing again for our clients.
Steps You Can Take to Strengthen Your Security Today
- Work with your IT teams to ensure you have sustainable processes and protocols in place that create a culture of cybersecurity.
- GRC (Governance Risk Compliance) is the compass that will guide you with clarity, navigating risks, resulting in a strong security ecosystem. Secure your future, one proactive step at a time.
- Foster an environment of collaboration internally and with partners, suppliers, and vendors.
- Create playbooks for incident management plans in critical departments including IT, Security, Operations, and Finance.
- Don’t be afraid to “think out of the box” and diversify vendor relationships across your organization.
If you’d like to learn from the thought leaders in specialty revenue cycle how EnableComp can support the unique needs of your organization, schedule a consultation.
To learn more about how we’re supporting healthcare providers in the wake of the Change Healthcare cyberattack, download our recent healthcare roundtable “Understanding the Impact of the Latest Cyberattack & Navigating the Uncertainty.”
