Safeguarding Healthcare: Essential Cybersecurity Strategies for Protecting Patient Data

Healthcare cybersecurity is a critical necessity for organizations across the medical sector, including healthcare providers, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and medical device manufacturers. It involves implementing various strategies to defend against both internal and external cyber threats, ensuring the availability of medical services, the proper functioning of medical systems and devices, safeguarding patient data integrity and confidentiality, and adhering to regulatory requirements.

To bolster cybersecurity in the healthcare and public health (HPH) sector, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC) Cybersecurity Working Group have partnered. Together, they offer tools, resources, training, and information to assist healthcare organizations in strengthening their cybersecurity. CISA contributes its cyber defense expertise, HHS brings deep knowledge in healthcare, and the HSCC Cybersecurity Working Group provides practical industry insights to address real-world cybersecurity challenges within the HPH sector.

Why are Healthcare organizations prime targets for cyber threats?

• Extensive and vulnerable attack surface: Beyond typical enterprise vulnerabilities, healthcare organizations manage numerous connected medical devices (IoMT), personal devices without adequate endpoint security (BYOD), and many third parties with access to sensitive patient data. The shift to remote work and telehealth, especially during COVID-19, has further expanded their attack surface with hastily implemented, often unsecured, IT infrastructure, offering attackers more entry points.
• High value of PHI on the black market: Personal Health Information (PHI) is highly valuable to cybercriminals due to the wealth of data it contains, which can be exploited for identity theft, healthcare fraud, and other malicious activities. Each medical record can sell for hundreds of dollars—significantly more than credit card data.
• Severe consequences of breaches: Cyberattacks can disrupt healthcare operations, limiting access to critical patient data and potentially endangering lives. Additionally, organizations face hefty fines under privacy regulations like HIPAA, which imposes penalties for the improper disclosure of PHI. HIPAA violations related to privacy, security, and breach notifications can result in fines up to $1.81 million per year.

Collaborate, Stay Informed, and Share Information Voluntarily

Voluntarily sharing information about cyber threats impacting critical infrastructure is vital for creating a comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape for all healthcare organizations.

Key systems that require cybersecurity measures:

Email:

Though email may not seem like a sensitive data repository, it often stores patient information. Securing email is essential to comply with PHI and PII regulations. Moreover, email is a frequent attack vector for phishing and malware. Thus, securing email systems is crucial for protecting private data from cyber threats.

Medical Devices:

Hospitals and clinics rely on various medical devices, such as nurses using medical PCs for patient records or doctors with tablets for prescriptions. If malicious actors gain access to these devices, they could steal sensitive data or infiltrate other systems. Cybersecurity strategies must protect medical devices from both physical and remote attacks.

Legacy Systems:

Legacy systems are outdated technologies no longer supported by manufacturers but still in use, like old operating systems or discontinued applications. These systems are vulnerable due to the lack of security updates and outdated documentation. Despite these challenges, healthcare cybersecurity solutions must safeguard data stored in legacy systems to mitigate cyber risks.

Here are some key measures to safeguard access and privilege:

1. Implement adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) to prevent incidents from compromised credentials.
2. Protect privileged accounts to prevent takeover attempts and potential breaches.
3. Limit user and process accounts through account use policies, user account control, and privileged account management.
4. Combine approaches to block unauthorized application access to sensitive data and prevent ransomware encryption, such as:
5. Application allowlisting to only permit execution of programs explicitly authorized by security policies.
6. Restricting application access to sensitive data, even if they are allowed to run.
7. Removing local admin rights and enforcing least privilege on endpoints to prevent privilege escalation and limit lateral or vertical movement within systems.
8. Cataloging software and setting execution and operational policies.
9. Applying Software Restriction Policies (SRPs) or similar controls to prevent programs from executing from known ransomware-prone locations.
10. Secure remote third-party access to minimize breach risks from compromised vendors, contractors, business partners, or other external entities.

Path Forward for Enhancing Healthcare Cybersecurity:

1. Develop voluntary cybersecurity performance goals for the healthcare industry.
2. Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) for remote access.
3. Strengthen spam filters to block phishing emails.
4. Implement user training and conduct simulated spear-phishing tests.
5. Filter network traffic effectively.
6. Regularly update all software, including operating systems, applications, and firmware.
7. Restrict Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) access and limit network accessibility.
8. Perform frequent antivirus and antimalware scans.
9. Implement user account control and manage privileged accounts.
10. Prevent unauthorized execution by using application allowlisting and Software Restriction Policies (SRPs).
11. Disable macros in Microsoft Office attachments.
12. Monitor or block inbound connections from anonymization services (e.g., Tor) and post-exploitation tools like Cobalt Strike.

Where are you at with the security of your legacy application portfolio?  Do you have out-of-production systems still running in read-only format?  Are there disparate systems on various platforms, or, have you consolidated legacy data stores to a single, secure archive?  Work with Triyam to secure your legacy EHR and ERP data in a HIPAA-compliant archive to help protect your organization from additional cyber security threats.Triyam named the Best in KLAS in Data Archiving (2021, 2022, 2024) and featured on the Inc. 5000 list as one of the ‘fastest-growing’ companies in America (2021, 2022, 2023 ) excels in EHR and ERP data archiving for the past decade.