Do you know that in one out of three cases of ransomware attacks, the victims is always a hospital? Well, this is what Beazley’s recent cybersecurity report suggested.
Beazley conducted research on a wide range of industries where it found the healthcare sector as one of the most damaged industries. As hospital managements have been scratching their heads for ransomware removal and recovery, the report narrowed down these attacks on 5 major factors.
Accidental Disclosure
Almost 32 percent of the attacks on hospitals occur due to accidental disclosure. Accidental disclosure refers to irresponsible practices by medical staff where data is “accidentally” exposed to third parties. This exposure is mainly due to the lack of adherence to digital hygiene practices.
Malware
Almost 30 percent of the attacks are made possible due to a malware. Malware points to a number of cyberthreats like botnets, Trojan, worms etc. However, the most dangerous of them all is ransomware. Whether it was the attack on LabCorp or the Cass Regional Center breach, ransomware has been the common prime suspect in several healthcare attacks in the year 2018. As a result, data of many patients was compromised and hospitals had to spend a considerable amount of time for ransomware removal processes.
Insider
Sometimes, the attack may not occur due to a breach or an error; betrayal can be a reason too. Disgruntled or unreliable employees can often support third parties in the hack. Beazley report states that 17 percent of these attacks were due to the result of insider betrayals.
Physical Loss
There have been a few reported cases where the perpetrators directly attack the physical IT infrastructure and attempted to steal hardware. These incidents account for 9 percent of the total attack
Portable Device
The report presented the fact that 6 percent of the attacks were linked with a hack on the portable devices.
