HIMSSCast: With new cybersecurity threats emerging, tips on building resilience

MorganFranklin Consulting’s Ferdinand Hamada and Matt DeFrain offer their perspectives on the current threat environment and how health systems can build better cybersecurity resilience and business continuity strategies.

By Mike Miliard

October 06, 2023

01:42 AM

Photo: Tetra Images/Getty Images

In a fast-changing cyber threat landscape, with ever-expanding layers of vulnerability, the stakes are high for hospitals and health systems who must do all they can to protect against the prospect of weeks of downtime and disruption that could lead to serious patient safety risks in the event of a targeted malware attack.

And the infosec environment is not getting any friendlier. From nation state bad actors to future threats such as cryptography-cracking quantum computers, CISO and other security leaders have a tall order to deploy the technology and build the culture needed to safeguard their organizations IT systems and medical devices from cyber risk.

We spoke recently with Ferdinand Hamada, managing director of healthcare at MorganFranklin Consulting, and Matt DeFrain, managing director MorganFranklin's Cyber & Operational Resilience practice, about existing and emerging healthcare cybersecurity threats and got their perspective on best practices for how health systems can build and implement more robust resilience and continuity programs. Here's what they had to say.

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Talking points:

Their assessment of the current healthcare threat landscape.
Emerging cyberattack tactics that concern them most.
What they're hearing from their clients about areas of concern.
Basic keys to building sustainable cyber resilience programs.
How to get everyone on board – from the C-suite to staff.
Cyber insurance: how to approach now that it's harder and more expensive to get policies.
What they see they look to future of cybersecurity in healthcare.