Healthcare officials calling for Government support amidst rising ransomware attacks

WASHINGTON DC — There is a new effort to protect personal information when cyber attacks against hospitals are rising.

Health officials are pushing for more resources to help facilities guard against ransomware attacks as the federal government is tracking a major uptick in healthcare.

They’ve seen a 278% increase in large breaches between 2018 to 2022 alone.

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Some of the effects of a ransomware attack within the healthcare system include canceled appointments, delayed treatment, and patients being diverted to other facilities.

“We live in a world where healthcare is highly digital and highly connected making us vulnerable given the value of the data we manage,” Scott Dresen with Corewell Health said.

Hospital Administrators are trying their best to stay ahead, but they need help.

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“Many of these technologies aren’t an option for financially disadvantaged healthcare systems due to cost,” Dresen said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has come up with a new plan, pushing for funding from Congress to help hospitals improve protections.

The money would go toward training and the initial costs of setting up security protocols, which Cybersecurity experts say is critical.

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“Because you can only say, you know, use multifactor authentication, train your users, blah, blah, but so many times everybody knows what that standard is, what those rules are. It’s just really hard to pay for this stuff,” Mike Hamilton the Founder of Critical Insight said.

The agency also plans to use fines to enforce and encourage hospitals to keep their systems secure.

“I do think that this can be effective in letting the people the patients know the government is now on our side - the government is now helping to stop this from happening,” Hamilton said.

There are also plans to set up a central hub to improve access to federal cybersecurity resources.

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