SECURITY NEWS
Healthcare losing ground against cyberattacks finds Sophos
Chester Wisniewski , Director Field CTO , Sophos
Sophos shared its sector survey report , The State of Ransomware in Healthcare
2023 , which revealed that , among those organisations surveyed , cybercriminals successfully encrypted data in nearly 75 % of ransomware attacks . This is the highest rate of encryption in the past three years and a significant increase from the 61 % of healthcare organisations that reported having their data encrypted last year .
In addition , only 24 % of healthcare organisations were able to disrupt a ransomware attack before the attackers encrypted their data , down from 34 % in 2022 ; this is the lowest rate of disruption reported by the sector over the past three years .
The percentage of organisations that successfully stop an attack before encryption is a strong indicator of security maturity . For the healthcare sector , however , this number is quite low , only 24 %. What is more , this number is declining , which suggests the sector is actively losing ground against cyberattacks and is increasingly unable to detect and stop an attack in progress .
Part of the problem is that ransomware attacks continue to grow in sophistication , and the attackers are speeding up their attack timelines . In the latest Active Adversary Report for Tech Vendors , we found that the median time from the start of a ransomware attack to detection was only five days . We also found that 90 % of ransomware attacks took place after regular business hours .
“ The ransomware threat has simply become too complex for most companies to go at it alone . All organisations , especially those in healthcare , need to modernise their defensive approach to cybercrime , moving from being solely preventative to actively monitoring and investigating alerts and securing outside help in the form of services like managed detection and response , MDR ,” said Chester Wisniewski , Director Field CTO , Sophos . Additional findings from the report include :
• In 37 % of ransomware attacks where data was successfully encrypted , data was also stolen , suggesting a rise in the double dip method .
• Healthcare organisations are now taking longer to recover , with 47 % recovering in a week , compared to 54 % last year .
• The overall number of ransomware attacks against healthcare organisations surveyed declined from 66 % in 2022 to 60 % this year .
• Compromised credentials were the number one root cause of ransomware attacks against healthcare organisations , followed by exploits .
• The number of healthcare organisations surveyed that paid ransom payments declined from 61 % last year to 42 % this year . This is lower than the cross-sector average of 46 %.
“ Cyberspace today is ripe with technically sophisticated actors looking for vulnerabilities to exploit . What all this translates to is a multidimensional cyberthreat of actors who have the tools to paralyse entire hospitals . Partnering with the private sector is critical to our mission . The information they share has real-world impacts and can save real businesses and real lives ,” said Christopher Wray , FBI Director . •
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