Today, because of the COVID-19, healthcare institutions worldwide have extensively used all necessary functionality of their sector due to the vast number of patients coming in. Unfortunately, the healthcare systems must deal with more problems than patients alone. Ransomware attacks are the most dangerous thing that an institution can encounter, especially in the health sector. These attacks can cause massive damages not just to the online system of every hospital but also to its patients.
How can a single ransomware attack affect the lives inside a healthcare institution?
According to a recent study, ransomware campaigns by threat actors against healthcare sectors can directly impact the patients. A researcher conducted a study on about 597 health organisations, and the results of this study are very alarming.
Based on the report initiated by the researchers, about 70% of respondents said that a single ransomware attack could result in a prolonged admittance for patients.
Also, the study participants revealed that ransomware attacks could develop delays in medical operations or procedures, which results in unexpected outcomes for patients.
On the other hand, 65% of the respondents showed that these campaigns could increase the number of transferred patients from ransomware-affected institutions to another. Below 50% of healthcare firms that participated in the study disclosed that a ransomware attack increased the complication of their overall medical procedures.
Fortunately, only a small number of respondents recorded an increase in mortality rate during a ransomware event.
Web apps are also prone to ransomware attacks.
In a 2021 web application cybersecurity report, an IT firm revealed that about 90% of web applications utilised by the United States healthcare providers are very prone to cyberattacks like ransomware.
In addition, 85% of the 20 best healthcare and pharmaceutical web apps are severely exposed.
It means an estimated total of over 6,000 web apps are operated by the United States healthcare sector with about 2,000 plus domains, of which 23% of these apps are used under defective components.
Over 20,000 apps over 9,000+ domains have about 18% running on vulnerable components in European healthcare providers.
What should healthcare authorities do?
In conclusion, healthcare cybersecurity should identify operational flaws and develop a plan to solve weaknesses inside a digital infrastructure. Since threat actors are now on a rampage and ravaging numerous hospitals, IT firms must make quick and efficient countermeasures. Cybersecurity should always consider these things because many lives are at stake against a ransomware attack.
