Covenant Healthcare suffered a data breach incident after the email accounts of two employees were compromised in May 2020.
In a public statement, Covenant Healthcare revealed that the breach included sensitive patient information.
“The impacted email accounts that were accessed contained personal information, specifically names, addresses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, medical diagnosis and clinical information, medical treatment information, prescription information, doctors’ names, medical record numbers, patient account numbers, and medical insurance information.”
Healthcare staff are often tricked into introducing malicious threats into internal systems. The trickery almost always involves a fraudulent email that seems like it was sent by a reliable source, a cyberattack method known as phishing.
Upon responding to such emails, which could involve downloading attachments or clicking on its links, dormant malicious software is set free to exfiltrate sensitive data, or most commonly, launch a ransomware attack.
But there’s a simple solution that could finally blunt the concerning healthcare cyber attack trend. Healthcare staff are the most common gateways to cyberattacks so if they’re trained to identify the warning signs of an attack attempt, data breach incidents could be minimized.
The following resources can be used to educate health workers about common cyberattack methods::
- Phishing attacks
- Social Engineering Attacks
- DDoS attacks
- Ransomware attacks
- Malware attacks
- Clickjacking attacks
By responding to exasperating cyberattack incidents, the health sector isn’t capable of efficiently treating Covid-19 patients. A dedicated effort to mitigating cyber threats could be the key to solving the global Covid treatment congestion crisis.
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