Agencies recommend action to protect critical infrastructure from cyber threats

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, FBI and National Security Agency yesterday released recommendations to help health care and other critical infrastructure organizations prevent, detect and respond to common Russian state-sponsored cyber threats. 

John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk at the AHA, said, “Geopolitical tensions with Russia over the Ukraine and other issues seem to be fueling the increased cyber threat posed by Russia. This raises three issues of concern for the field: 1) Hospitals and health systems may be targeted directly; 2) hospitals and health systems may become incidental victims or collateral damage of Russian-deployed malware or destructive ransomware that inadvertently penetrates U.S. health care; and 3) a cyberattack could disrupt a mission-critical service provider to hospitals. This is a good reminder for all to have robust downtime procedures, redundancy and business continuity plans to sustain a loss of on-premises or cloud-based mission-critical services or technology for up to four to six weeks.”