Not too long ago, security mean locking your front door when you went out for a long time (maybe) or keeping that file cabinet locked at night when no one was around. It meant taking some basic requirements to make it clear to less than savory people that they were to keep out of your stuff.
For the most part, that mentality has worked pretty well for the past century or more. Especially in rural areas where we know our neighbors by name and see them at the grocery store or at a school event. Maybe just about everyone in town attends the high school football and basketball games (in my home town that’s what happened at least). The bottom line is that in rural America, we have trust. Trust in our neighbors to do the right thing, trust in local officials and trust that what is ours stays ours without really taking any additional steps to do so.
With cybersecurity, our culture of trust makes it a little hard to stick to our old habits.
Today, intruders can break into our home or work office with ease. And what’s terrible about today is the people breaking in are doing so with intention to steal or extort.
Twenty years ago you probably would never think of a criminal breaking into your house and stealing your things. Simply because we didn’t raise criminals. We shared what we could with our neighbors and pretty much everyone respected our homes or work as our spaces.
But twenty years later, cybercriminals from Asia and Eastern Europe, among other places, have been trained and taught specifically to break into our computers.
They trick us to click on links—deceiving our users into giving up vital information that could give them complete access to our hospital networks.
They steal medical records to sell anonymously to people who cannot afford a major surgery, but is in desperate need for one—and resorts to stealing an identity to get a procedure done. They lock down hospitals with viruses, knowing that data they are encrypting (essentially locking down) is critical for the lives you are trying to save. They create fear in our communities to the point that none of us hope to ever come into contact with them.
There’s one thing rural healthcare is not doing as well as it should.
Understanding how to use limited resources in a way that will protect your patients, your team and the long term sustainability of your hospital.
There are very easy ways to invest in security. There are simple checks to make sure your network is actually secure enough to withstand a cyberattack. And there actually are simple ways to make sure you’re spending your IT budget wisely.
One of the easiest ways to get educated is to talk to cybersecurity experts that know rural healthcare.
An even easier way is to attend a cybersecurity webinar addressing these issues:
3 Things Every Hospital CFO Should Know About Your Computer Systems
Consider attending this webinar if you are at all concerned with the security of your hospital network or how to use limited resources to afford security that is more than just security theater.
