Charles CooperConsulting Editor
The RSA Conference 2021 Virtual Experience is happening May 17-20 and Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, will be providing a summary of some of the leading stories from the conference to help you stay informed.
It’s time to stop paying ransoms to criminal organizations that lock up vital corporate data, two experts urged healthcare organizations attending a panel discussion at the RSAC 2021 Conference on Monday.
“As long as we keep paying them as a society, we’re the venture capitalists for the next incident,” said Caleb Barlow, CEO of CynergisTek who added that the recent $5 million ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline will simply fund more hacker development teams to extort other companies.
Co-panelist Robin Ford, manager information systems security Palomar Health, agreed. “Ransoms are enticing the bad guys to keep on [hacking].” As well, paying a sanctioned entity causes big problems. “You can break federal laws.” It’s time to stop paying ransoms to criminal organizations that lock up vital corporate data, two experts urged healthcare organizations attending a panel discussion at the RSAC 2021 Conference on Monday. Barlow acknowledged that refusing ransoms is difficult. Healthcare organizations are now facing more incursions from ransomware hackers with more advanced tools. Most target electronic health records. In the past, black hats would sell the information on the dark web or place records in a nation-state repository for later use, said Barlow. That didn’t cause down time.
Not anymore. Hospitals generate an ocean of record data. Ford recalls one provider had enough paper after a two-week IT down period to fill an entire conference room floor to ceiling. Often attacks take down an organization for four to six weeks.
The key is preparation, said Barlow. That includes formulating detailed play books to handle a potential ransomware breach. Many hospitals fall ..
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