Blockchain technology, wearable technology, precision medicine and virtual rehab used in orthopaedics will lead to the next generation of hospitals — smart hospitals. As these technologies continue to grow over the next five years, the healthcare IT solutions they’ll produce will undoubtedly provide better clinical and financial outcomes.

More than a half million Windows machines, mostly servers, have been zombified by Monero mining malware spread by a cyber gang that created the biggest mining botnet found to date. This botnet is called Smominru. Several security companies have released their research on this cyber group activity. It is a relatively new gang. Crooks started their operations not earlier than the previous year. All reports that earlier described the Smominru botnet, managed to cover only a small part of the gang’s operation. Partial botnet infrastructure has been previously provided by Kaspersky, TrendMicro, Panda Security. However, the latest study by Proofpoint…

Present-day malware is groundbreaking enough to slip under the radar of traditional defenses. Cybercriminals have plenty of time and resources to test their perpetrating code extensively. The malicious code can then potentially circumvent regular detection mechanisms and raise no red flags for days on end. Unfortunately, antivirus vendors are a step behind when it comes to identifying such high-profile infections. The payload for the Angler exploit kit, for instance, can go undetected on a targeted host for two days on average.

Falling victim to cybersecurity can happen to anyone at any given time – leaving your medical practice at risk for the safety of those whose case sensitive information have been stolen. Thus, it’s absolutely paramount that certain cybersecurity measures are put in place before you become the next healthcare cybersecurity risk.

It is crucial to decide beforehand what the organization would do if it has contractual agreements to deliver vendor or client data, but it cannot do so because that data is encrypted. Some additional force majeure type clauses may have to be inserted in all the contracts if possible stating that if the organization is under Ransomware attack and the data is still encrypted; it will not be able to provide it. This scenario has to be looked at from the legal point of view and also should be compliant with the company incorporation rules and laws.

Disruptions and losses due to Ransomware are enormous Over the past three years, ransomware has come prominently into the limelight of the cyber threat scene, it is the fastest growing malware threat, and organizations have paid US$ 209 million in Q1 2016 through ransomware, FBI estimates US$ 1 billion losses in 2016 because of ransomware. The disruptions due to Ransomware are enormous.

There has been a tremendous explosion of information technology (IT) in healthcare caused by billions of dollars of government incentives for usage of digital healthcare tools. But, IT systems face threats with significant adverse impacts on institutional assets, patients, and partners if sensitive data is ever compromised. Every health enterprise is required to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of its information assets (this is called “information assurance” or IA). Confidentiality means private or confidential information must not be disclosed to unauthorized persons.