Surviving the storm: The key to cyber resilience and incident response in healthcare

Abstract

This article underscores the significance of cyberdefences and response processes in healthcare, highlighting their contribution to cyber resilience through adherence to industry best practices. It emphasizes the value of hypothetical scenarios as a common practice in the field to validate the effectiveness of cyber resilient actions, systems, processes, and decision-making in the face of various cyberthreats. Focusing on the ransomware threat, the provided scenario examines its impact on healthcare systems and frontline support staff, while highlighting the time-sensitive challenges faced by response teams striving to restore essential services. Furthermore, it suggests replicating such analyses with key hospital personnel to precisely assess the impact of other types of cyberthreats, such as those originating from malicious insiders or technical data breaches facilitated through social engineering attacks. By doing so, healthcare organizations can develop comprehensive and cyber resilient responses to safeguard their operations.