How can Kiwi health providers protect data?

SECTOR UPDATE - Theta

Pete Bailey, Head of Cyber Security at Theta, was a recent panellist on the HiNZ ‘Health cybersecurity: emerging threats and the national response’ webinar.

A staggering 95% of identity theft comes from stolen healthcare records. It’s a threat that isn’t going away anytime soon; these breaches happen again and again. Commoditisation means attackers don’t even need to write code; they can simply purchase existing ransomware on the dark web. It’s a successful operating model for attackers, who can gain more agents to deploy these attacks. It’s not just ransomware. It’s happening with other forms of cyber-attack too.

What’s specifically happening in NZ?
We’ve seen increasing instances of ‘browser scraping’. Effectively, you end up with malware on your device without realising you’ve downloaded it (with the malware often piggybacking off an application you’ve downloaded). Once on your device, it scrapes your browser, looking for passwords, usernames and ultimately any app you’ve logged into – whether it’s your social media, email, banking. It then uses this information for attacks.

Unfortunately, this is just one of many ways that an attacker can infiltrate an environment.

The good news
You CAN minimise your organisational and personal risk to these attacks. At Theta, we work with some of the best security technology vendors, have a well experienced security team and know what tools actually work to ensure this happens. One of our most popular services is Managed Detection and Response – which is essentially an inexpensive monthly subscription that gives you 24/7 protection with the oversight of our team. It’s a service model that’s seen a huge boom overseas (USA and Europe) and now the benefits of it are being realised by Kiwi organisations too.

Next steps
Health providers typically have a complex system setup, which means it’s harder to cover all your bases. We’ve worked with several organisations who face this challenge, and so we know what to look for. If you’re in any doubt about your organisational security, talk to us at Theta. We’d be happy to review your current status.

You can watch the Health cybersecurity: emerging threats and the national response’ webinar on-demand here

Picture: Pete Bailey, Head of Cyber Security at Theta

Source: Theta media release

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