Ransomware. It’s become an almost weekly headline in the healthcare industry. Hospitals in California, Washington, D.C., Texas, and other areas of the country have found themselves at the mercy of hackers who can completely paralyze the IT infrastructure. What’s at stake? Patient care, Protected Health Information (PHI) of countless patients and reputation of the hospital. Phishing seems to be the main mode of attack, meaning that the opening of a single seemingly harmless email could put a healthcare organization on the hook for thousands, maybe millions of dollars if they don’t comply with the hacker’s demands. That cost doesn’t even include the possibility of severe HIPAA fines if any PHI is compromised.
As a health IT professional, what can you do if faced with a ransomware attack? Swift and immediate action must be taken as time is of the essence. Below are step-by-step instructions that your team should follow to limit the amount of damage caused by ransomware:
While containing and eradicating the ransomware, use the broadcasting feature of your secure texting service to update every one of the current statuses.
If you need any help with establishing a Secure Texting Command Center for your healthcare organization, please do not hesitate to contact QliqSOFT. If you would like to learn more about how secure texting can be used as a disaster preparedness tool, schedule a free 30-minute demo HERE.
With over two decades of technology entrepreneurship background, Krishna Kurapati started QliqSOFT with the strong desire to solve clinical collaboration and workflow challenges in US Healthcare. During the late 90s, Krishna co-founded IPCell to build the first Cable IP Telephony switch, eventually selling the company to Cisco Systems. In 2003, he started Sipera (acquired by Avaya Systems) to solve security issues for Unified Communications' and raised over $30MM in venture funding. Additionally, he has been actively involved in the early-stage financing of startups in both the US and India.
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