Operational Intelligence for MFT

Ransomware protection and recovery in healthcare

Ransomware protection and recovery

Hospitals are one of the most vulnerable institutions to ransomware attacks because of the services they provide, as they can’t sustain significant periods of downtimes. And, since cyber gangs are looking for vulnerabilities, there is a good chance the hospital–where system downtime could impact the health of patients or even the loss of life–would pay the ransom, making them targets. This is where ransomware protection and recovery in healthcare comes into play!

Predictions for 2020 are not good

Predictions suggest that what is on the horizon is more worrying than the 748 percent explosion of ransomware attacks this year, which is mind-boggling. In 2018, one in four healthcare organizations were hit by ransomware, in 2020 that number is expected to quadruple.

READ MORE: File sharing and content collaboration in healthcare. IT leaders share their insights.

Ransomware can be expensive and devastating.  Based on recent reports, ransomware payments have increased by 184 percent during the second quarter of 2019 and the average downtime is 10 days. So how do you go about having ransomware protection and recovery?

While there is no single answer for ransomware, we have a few tips for our customers and those who are looking at solutions for centralizing and managing unstructured data-–using a solution like Syncplicity.

Ransomware protection and recovery

One, start with e-mail. E-mail is the primary point of entrance for ransomware. It comes in the form of an infected attachment and when a user clicks on it, it then releases the ransomware into the organization.

E-mail continues to be one of the most used tools for sharing files and collaborating.  Based on a research study, we conducted across 500 IT leaders, we learned that 83.3% of healthcare IT leaders agree that users are still using email as a primary means to share files and collaborate.

READ MORE: Discover why all companies need to have a ransomware recovery plan in place.

This is a great time, to change that behavior. With Syncplicity, your unstructured data is centralized, secured on-premises, private or public cloud–and then your internal teams–doctors, administrative teams can create shared links for sharing files internally–this limits attachment internally. You’ll still need to be on the lookout for external attachments, but it will decrease the burden.

Back up files in real-time, with Syncplicity your files, are backed-up in the cloud in real-time, automatically.

Retention policies

A file retention policy allows you to retain deleted files forever or for a specified period of time.  If your original files are deleted by ransomware, you can retrieve them. It’s important to review your file version retention policies. This helps with ransomware protection and recovery.

Recovery of locked files and records

Now that you have your retention policies set and your files are backed up, users can restore the latest version of files before they were locked up and held hostage (if the unfortunate happens), as well as recover deleted files. Healthcare organizations that have been hit with system-wide breaches impacting multiple users and thousands of files should contact Syncplicity for assistance.

For more information on how to prevent and recover your files, download A Pound of Cure: Ransomware Protection and Recovery in Healthcare.