Taking Healthcare Threat Protection to the Next Level with HITRUST

Credit to Author: Mike Gibson| Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2017 12:00:22 +0000

Healthcare organizations (HCOs) worldwide continue to be on the receiving end of cyber-attacks. But if we work together we have both the tools and motivation to turn this around. That’s why Trend Micro has been a long-time partner and advocate of the great work HITRUST is doing to help improve baseline cyber security resilience and maturity in the sector.

Now it’s time to take things to the next level with HITRUST’s HITRUST CTX Deceptive: an industry first, shared cyber deception platform designed to lure attackers and detect advanced threats. Thanks to the new offering, Trend Micro is able to provide even more accurate threat prevention to participating HCOs, 24/7.

HCOs under fire

Healthcare organizations are a hugely attractive target for hackers. On the one hand Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are increasingly popular on the cybercrime underground, as we explained in a report from earlier in the year. They often contain not just medical but also other sensitive information including Social Security numbers which have a long shelf-life and can be used in a wide range of scams. In fact, a complete EHR database, can sell for as much as $500,000. The FBI was even forced to issue a warning earlier in the year, arguing that the sector is not as resilient as other industries.

Systems are often a blend of legacy platforms and newer cloud and IoT technologies which can increase the organization’s potential attack surface if not properly secured. With the number and range of specialized applications and the integration across the healthcare continum, it makes the challenge even bigger, but one that is more managable if the industry works together.

Trend Micro blocked a staggering 82 million ransomware threats globally in the first half of 2017 alone, while other stats reveal global HCOs to be responsible for the biggest number (25%) of data breach incidents of any sector, in 1H 2017.

The missing piece

This is why the work HITRUST is doing is so important and why Trend Micro has been a participant in  several of their industry initiatives, like HITRUST CTX Deceptive program. But we can do more.

Now, HITRUST and Trend Micro are launching a new initiative. The CTX Advanced program is for leading HCO’s interested in leveraging advanced deception-based technology to lure attackers into showing their hand so we can gain a better understanding of their methods, processes, tactics and targets of interest. The honeypots we use mimic EHRs, commonly used medical devices and other healthcare-specific systems, spread across multiple HCOs via the HITRUST CTX threat-sharing infrastructure.

With this insight into even previously unseen threats we can engineer a response in the form of IOC data to keep HCOs safe and secure. It’s all about increasing our visibility into threats, and accelerating early detection and response, to make healthcare targets less appealing to attackers. In so doing, HCOs can avoid the mounting costs of data breaches and ransomware outages and ensure patient care is left unaffected.

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