CHCs, please make sure your employees are paying close attention to cybersecurity.  This week the Federal government issued alerts about the increased potential for cyberattacks as tensions escalate between Russia and Ukraine, and experts agree that health care providers are a prime target for such attacks, as the on-going strains caused by the pandemic make them particularly vulnerable. 

Federal officials pointed specifically to concerns about spear-phishing email. Given these concerns, CHCs are advised to “adopt a heightened posture when it comes to cybersecurity and protecting their most critical assets.”  

This is particularly problematic as the recently released 2021 HIMSS Healthcare Cybersecurity Survey showed phishing attacks were by far the most common way health care IT systems are breached.

Reduce the likelihood of a damaging cyber intrusion:

• Remind employees to be vigilant in clicking on links or responding to emails that they are not familiar with that misspells their email addresses or is not directly related to their job duties
• Validate that all remote access to the organization’s network and privileged or administrative access requires multi-factor authentication.
• Ensure that software is up to date, prioritizing updates that address known exploited vulnerabilities.
• Confirm that the organization’s IT personnel have disabled all ports and protocols that are not essential for business purposes.
• If the organization is using cloud services, ensure that IT personnel have reviewed and implemented strong controls. 

If your CHC does experience a cyber-attack, please notify NCCHCA’s Compliance Officer immediately so that we can protect all CHC’s systems from being compromised.