The Healthcare Ransomware Epidemic: 5 Best Practices For Safeguarding Your Organization

During a recent webinar with Becker's Hospital Review sponsored by Fortinet, Troy Ament, chief information security officer for healthcare at Fortinet, a security management company, discussed the cybersecurity landscape and how health systems can protect themselves. "When we partner with health systems, we seek to understand where they are in their security journey," Mr. Ament explained. Through targeted attacks, they can obtain more sophisticated access and spread ransomware internally," Mr. Ament said. According to Mr. Ament, "When work shifted to the home setting, some healthcare organizations did so securely, adopting technologies like [a software-defined wide-area network] and multifactor authentication. "Doing tabletop exercises with executives who have managed through a bad security situation can be really helpful," Mr. Ament said. Many health systems are working with managed security providers like Fortinet. We can also provide long-term staff augmentation for security operations center work," Mr. Ament said.