Ransomware attacks and other cybersecurity incidents can cause smaller hospitals and medical centers to shut its doors because these providers lack to resources to recover, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Data from the American Medical Association indicated that around 57 percent of the data breaches last year had 10 or fewer physicians and around 15 percent were operated by solo providers.
Smaller healthcare providers are targets for hackers because they don't have sophisticated security tools and often don't have cybersecurity specialists, Jennifer Barr, a healthcare analyst at Moody's told WSJ.
Along with not have robust resources to handle cyberattacks, smaller healthcare organizations sometimes don't have the money to recover, Linn Freedman, health of the privacy and cybersecurity practice at law firm Robinson & Cole, told WSJ.
A medical center in Simi Valley, Calif., is planning to close its doors at the end of the year because it has been unable to restore its systems after being hit with a ransomware attack. Another medical center in New York closed its doors in April because its data had been inaccessible after it decided to not pay a ransomware attack.