Human-operated ransomware: why health and life sciences organizations should pay attention

Ransomware existed in small pockets starting in 2013 and was opportunistic, typically affecting one or two devices within an organization.

The more popular and destructive types of ransomware appeared as WannaCry in May 2017 and NotPetya in June 2017. Because these variants of ransomware used vulnerabilities in unpatched operating systems to propagate, this kind of ransomware affected entire organizations rather than one or two devices.

Cybersecurity organizations started noticing a business model created from these more sophisticated and persistent types of ransomware starting in June 2019. This vastly expanded the ransomware business model into an enterprise scale operation blending targeted attack techniques and the extortion business model, threatening disclosure of data or encryption in exchange for payment. Human-operated ransomware is persistent, which means that it can mutate to evade detection from common anti-malware systems. This allows it to remain hidden within an organization and used in the future.

How human-operated ransomware affects the health and life sciences industry

Criminal organizations will target critical infrastructure, which may include the electrical grid, gas pipelines, water management, schools, governments, traffic management systems and even healthcare organizations. These criminal organizations realize that time is of the essence when providing patient care because lives are on the line. This makes the healthcare organization victim more likely to pay the ransom to return to business as usual.

Defining the risk of human-operated ransomware to senior management

There are many examples of ransomware affecting 500 or more individuals in the healthcare sector available for reference. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights keeps records of reported incidents in healthcare throughout the U.S. Given these overwhelming statistics and the net impact of ransomware on healthcare organizations, it should be less difficult than before to create a business case for senior management to implement the right people, processes and technologies to lower the risk of occurrence and severity of impact.

Reduce the risk of becoming a victim of any kind of ransomware

The stakes have changed, and nowhere can the impact of human-operated ransomware be felt more acutely than by health and life sciences organizations. By taking these steps, organizations can make it harder for a ransomware attacker to get into an environment, limit the scope or damage, and better recover from an attack without having to pay the ransom so you don’t become a target for another attack because of a history of paying ransoms.

Access more information from this sponsor here: Human-operated ransomware | Microsoft Docs

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