Ransomware groups are increasingly focusing on executing attacks on vulnerable remote access systems in healthcare, a April 12 report from nonprofit patient safety organization ECRI found.
According to the report, there have been "several high-profile incidents in recent months."
"Although we're seeing an uptick in ransomware that targets remote access, this threat is not new," Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and CEO of ECRI, said in an April 12 news release. "ECRI has called out cybersecurity issues in our annual top 10 hazards list every year since 2018 — with hackers exploiting remote access topping the list in 2019. It's alarming that the issue has only worsened in the years since."
ECRI is recommending healthcare leaders regularly conduct scans of perimeter networks, consider blocking internet traffic to their organization's systems from countries that might pose a threat, and regularly check logs and monitor traffic from remote access systems.