Ransomware is leading hospital boards to pour more money into cybersecurity

A CISO talks with Healthcare IT News about boards' changing views of security, how hospitals are adapting to ransomware strikes and how infosec professionals' priorities are shifting along with the threat landscape.

Ransomware has been plaguing healthcare provider organizations for some time now. The onset of the COVID-19, in fact, brought even more attacks.

Steve Smerz is chief information security officer at Halo Health, vendor of a clinical collaboration platform that includes secure messaging, video, voice, alarms and alerts designed to enable clinicians to connect easily. 

He says he's seeing a drive for hospital and health system boards to increase resources to cybersecurity teams as ransomware continues to nail healthcare organizations in the second half of 2021.

According to Smerz, hospitals are the perfect targets for ransomware threat actors. They have large amounts of data that can be encrypted and impact the hospitals' ability to operate, dollars in the bank to pay the ransom, and a board that is not as tech-savvy as those in other industries.