HEALTHCARE DATA UNDER ATTACK | 7 BEST PRACTICES FOR HEALTHCARE SECURITY

The King's Messenger

How Can Healthcare Data Breaches Be Prevented?

Here’s our seven best practices to help your organization prevent healthcare data loss:

1. Use Next-Gen Security Software

Well, of course, we would say that since we provide best-in-class EDR and EPP detection, as ranked by Gartner Peer Insights 2019. But it’s not just our recommendation that next-gen AV software is a must-have, as we noted above. HIPAA guidelines also recommend that organizations invest in technology to secure the network perimeter, detect intrusions, and block malware and phishing threats. Next-Gen AV software is the only way to do that effectively as legacy Antivirus software suites have multiple blindspots and cannot provide deep visibility into events on your endpoints.

2. Lock Down Your Endpoints

As we’ve seen, insider breaches are a major cause of data loss in healthcare. Make sure you have the ability to control what devices can be plugged into your machines. Physical access to ports can both let malicious software in and protected data out.

3. Restrict and Monitor Network Traffic

As most malware comes into your network from the internet or phishing emails, healthcare providers need to be able to govern permitted communications to and from every endpoint. Administrators should control and enforce policies to prevent devices from communicating with known or newly-discovered phishing URLs or malware sites.

4. Automate Software Updates

Vulnerabilities in software are a key vector for hackers looking to steal medical data, so patching your software on a regular basis is vital. Unpatched and misconfigured systems represent a massive weak spot in security, representing 80 percent of the corporate attack surface. Automating the process of patching OS and 3rd-party software vulnerabilities is, therefore, essential.

5. Don’t Rely on Reputation

It’s not just unauthorized processes that you need to be aware of, but also trusted ones. That’s why security software that whitelists trusted vendors is a blindspot in healthcare data protection. When hackers can hijack the update server of one of the world’s largest computer manufacturers, you know that you need to have a security solution that actually detects processes as malicious based on their behavior, not their identity.

6. Watch Out for IoT Devices

IoT (Internet of Things) devices are a problem across every sector, nowadays, and compromised IoT medical devices are a real threat to your network. Be sure that you have visibility into all devices across your network. SentinelOne’s Ranger will provide just this kind of protection, with the ability to keep a self-updating inventory of what’s on your network and to easily find unmanaged endpoints.

7. Have an Incident Response Plan

HIPAA and other regulations require healthcare organizations to have a disaster recovery plan, and you need to act quickly when a breach is discovered. You should have an action plan even if specific circumstances prevent you from following it exactly. The plan can help guide and structure your responses when time is critical.

--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thekingsmessenger/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thekingsmessenger/support