In news that will surprise precisely no one, the list of lurking cyber threats putting healthcare data in peril continues to lengthen.
Healthcare, you may have heard by now, has developed a reputation among hackers, cyberattackers and assorted other bad actors as an industry that’s both “target-rich and easy pickings.” As such, it finds itself in the crosshairs of innumerable hackers and bad actors hoping to harvest mission-critical data or otherwise wreak havoc on healthcare IT systems.
Just look at the most recent HIMSS Healthcare and Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Report for a snapshot of where we are. The report offers a menagerie of creatively-named new species of malware of which to beware:
- Agent Smith (it infects Android devices and surreptitiously replaces their applications with malicious mobile apps);
- WannaHydra (an updated version of WannaLocker, which can harvest text information, call logs, phone numbers);
- The Astaroth Trojan spam campaign (an information-stealing malware that can swipe sensitive data such as credentials, keystrokes, and more);
- Sodin ransomware (it exploits a vulnerability in the Oracle WebLogic platform; unlike other ransomware, it doesn’t…
