The death of a woman in Germany, linked to a ransomware attack, has placed security teams on high alert  and resulted in training for the workforce, according to an article on the SC Media website. German authorities are reportedly considering negligent homicide charges against the hackers.

There are other steps a healthcare facility can take to minimize the damage from a ransomware attack.

Hospitals need to be better prepared in anticipation of such incidents, be trained in proper response and consider having segmented or redundant data/systems on the ready.

There has been a significant increase in ransomware attempts against organizations responding to the pandemic, according to an article on the Built website.

The pandemic pushed hospital staff that were able to work remotely — departments like vendor support and administration — into the home office. 

Healthcare cybersecurity experts usually urge keeping as much activity inside the firewall of the facility as possible. 

Small but important steps: segmenting networks, implementing two-factor authentication across the board and using VPNs and making sure the VPNs are always configured correctly with the network are even more important during the crisis.

Read the full SC Media article.