RSNA 2022

Cybercrime against healthcare institutions has exploded in recent years. In 2021, more than 1 in 3 healthcare organizations reported being hit by ransomware. The situation has been considerably worsened by the pandemic, which produced a triple threat for healthcare systems: a rapid expansion of internet-connected technologies and services causing an expanded attack surface, an increase in many types of cyberattacks, and fewer available...

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ISfTeH

Richard Staynings with Michele Griffith MD, President of ISfTeH. The 'International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth' held its annual conference in San Jose, CA today and the author was proud to be invited to speak on the subject of 'cybersecurity as an enabler of new remote medical services'.  Remote patient services whether telehealth consults with a primary care physician, post operative recovery from home to free up needed hospital...

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Are Your Vendors Introducing Risk?

Cyber risks in healthcare are not just confined to data centers, to nursing stations, or to the PHI data that flows back and forth between health insurers, HIEs, government agencies, and patients. The risk matrix is much bigger than that. It includes thousands of suppliers, vendors, and partners that stretch across the globe. Everything from business process and IT outsourcers in India, to complex manufacturing supply chains for medical...

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Mitigating NHS Cyber Risks

The UK National Health System is about to start connecting many of its medical devices to the healthcare network as part of its latest efficiency drive, but what does this mean for the cybersecurity of medical networks and to patient safety? Richard Staynings, examines medical devices, their expected lifespan, risks and support by manufacturers and explores what solutions are available to providers like the NHS to reduce cybersecurity risks....

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Gulf Critical Infrastructure: Protecting What Matters Most

Richard Staynings with Padam Kafle, Head Of Information Technology & Automation, Aster Hospitals, UAE, Nada Chehab, Director of Clinical Education, American Hospital Dubai, Dr Mustafa Hasan Qurban Ph.D, CIO of King Fahd Military Medical Complex, Saudi Arabia, Ahmad Yahya, CIO, American Hospital Dubai, & Himanshu Puri, CIO, Kings College Hospital London UAE. Protecting GCC critical infrastructure industries...

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Ransomware Gang Demands $10m to restore French Hospital

The Center Hospitalier Sud Francilien (CHSF), a 1000-bed hospital located in Corbeil-Essonnes 28km SE from the center of Paris, has been virtually paralyzed by a cyberattack. Nearly all IT systems appear to have been taken off-line by a ransomware attack discovered on August 21, which has resulted in the medical center referring patients to other establishments and postponing appointments for surgeries. Non-critical services have had to be directed...

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NHS 111 Services Held to Ransom by Cyber Attack

NHS 111 services are down for much of the UK following a cyber-attack Thursday morning against the infrastructure of software vendor 'Advanced'. The company's Adastra system is used by call handlers to dispatch ambulances, to book urgent care appointments, and for out of office hours emergency prescriptions. It’s Caresys software is used extensively across more than 1,000 care homes, while Carenotes, Crosscare and Staffplan are used extensively...

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Meta sued for violating patient privacy

Facebook’s parent company Meta is facing two proposed class-action lawsuits for using the Meta Pixel tracking tool on health system websites to target ads.This is not the first time that Meta-Facebook has been dragged through the courts and sued for a breach of privacy. In this case the problem stems from the company’s wholesale vacuuming up of all kinds of metadata whenever a user visits a web page containing its Pixel tracker functionality....

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Challenges for UK Life Sciences

The Challenges for UK Life Sciences Companies Excerpted from Business Innovations Magazine UK May 2022 ...

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How Concerned Should we be about a Russian State Cyberattack against the US?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appears to be bogged down if the reports coming out of the country are to be believed. Indeed troops around Kyiv are currently reported to be withdrawing back to Belarus to regroup and re-arm. The surgical Blitzkrieg to take over the country and replace its elected leaders with Putin-friendly surrogates has failed, and now Russia has been forced to re-evaluate its military objectives and to focus on liberating...

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Can Healthcare Tackle IoT, Medical Device Security Challenges?

Join SCMedia Editor Jessica Davis and Cylera's Chief Security Strategist Richard Staynings for a FireSide Chat at VIVE2022 -  the new CHIME / HLTH conference in Miami Beach FL, as they explore the challenges of medical device security. ...

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Could Russia orchestrate cyberattacks against the west?

As concerns rise about the likelihood of increased cyberattacks against the west by Russian cyber forces, so the west is attempting to ready itself. Both the UK and US governments have this week issued warnings to citizens of the rising threats of an attack and urged increased diligence. Many consider a cyber attack almost inevitable given continuing western military support for Ukrainian defense, a growing army of hackers joining forces with...

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Impact of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

The Russian military invasion of Ukraine has unified the free world against acts of aggression by dictators and autocrats who threaten the territorial integrity of their neighbors.  After years of bullying, threats and intimidation by Putin and Kremlin against what it regards as one of its vassal states, Russian troops were ordered across the Ukrainian border on Thursday February 24th, 2022. This resulted in almost immediate global financial...

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Cotswold Radio - The need to secure healthcare IoT

Securing Healthcare and the growing complexity of interoperable health IT / IoT systems and medical devices. Richard Staynings discusses this with James Cunningham, CEO of Core To Cloud, based in Cirencester, Engalnd, and Tony Dale host of the evening Cotswolds Radio broadcast.Listen to a recording of the live broadcast below: &nb...

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Russia ready to launch cyber attacks on the West in retaliation for economic sanctions

Western governments and companies need to be on a “heightened state of preparedness” for the “high probability” of cyber attacks, as economic sanctions on Russia begin to bite, a senior cyber security expert has told GB News. And it is expected Russia will soon step up its campaign against the West with cyber attacks. Critical national infrastructure and the banking sector could be the main targets of any attack ordered by Vladimir Putin,...

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Ditial Health Rewired - Smart Health In Practice

Digital Health Rewired was full of highly informative presentations and discussions across many areas of healthcare, but perhaps most forward thinking were 2 days of sessions under the banner of Smart Health in Practice at the Smart Health Stage at the front of the show.I was proud the share the stage with 4 'greats' in the space of smart health innovation: Declan Hadley UK&I Lead for Cisco, Andy Callow, CDIO at University Hospitals of...

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Should we be worried about state-sponsored cyber-attacks against hospitals?

We ABSOLUTELY should! For the past decade and a half, the criminal underworld, Russian Mafia and other organized crime syndicates in the former Soviet Union have provided a constant reminder of both the fallibility of modern IT systems and the tenacious expertise of Russian hackers and their cyber-criminal community. In what now seems like background white noise, these highly organized perpetrators have executed a near constant campaign of cyber-theft,...

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Podcast: A Career in Cybersecurity

What is 'Cybersecurity', why is it so important today, and why do developed western societies need better cyber protection? Join Denver University Adjunct Professor and Chief Security Strategist for Cylera, Richard Staynings, as he describes the risks, rewards and opportunities for those seeking a career in this rapidly growing field. ...

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Pueblo Community College Cybersecurity Lecture

 It was great to present to the students and faculty of Pueblo Community College in southern Colorado this past week. The opportunities for those entering the profession from ICT cybersecurity and Healthcare programs like those at PCC are tremendous. My thanks to the faculty for organizing such a great event and to Mike Archuleta, CIO at nearby Mt San Rafael Hospital and fellow Health Informatics and Cybersecurity Luminary who also presented...

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Challenges for 21st Century Healthcare

Healthcare currently faces many unique challenges. It is an industry currently undergoing the most dramatic transformation in its history. Covid-19 ravaged hospital finances and forced providers to pivot from lucrative consults and elective surgeries to pandemic emergency care. This in turn led to the need for another (long overdue) pivot towards telehealth, telemedicine and remote health services as patients were told to avoid hospitals. And of...

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The New Reality of Securing Healthcare

Securing healthcare has never been either easy or straight forward given the patient safety dynamic of the industry, but after nearly two years of dealing with the global COVID pandemic, that challenge is now a whole lot harder. COVID19 caused a massive an immediate pivot across healthcare as patients consults were forced to go online via telehealth and telemedicine. At the same time non-clinical healthcare workers were sent away from hospitals...

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Securing Healthcare in a Post-Covid World

Plainly COVID has changed the paradigm of global healthcare delivery. The industry was forced to pivot quickly to a new and alarming reality and make changes that were necessary but largely unplanned. The pandemic brought about the greatest change to Healthcare technology and working practices ever seen outside of war.COVID forced us to quickly provide new forms of remote delivery of healthcare services to our patients via telehealth, telemedicine...

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