It is reported that Israel is planning to cover its national healthcare system with a ‘cyber defence shield’ following an increase in attacks amid the COVID-19 epidemic. Agencies elsewhere warn about the spike in cyber attacks on healthcare organisations.
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According to The Media Line, the Israel’s plans were revealed during a Cybertech B2B online conference by Reuven Eliyahu, CTO and Supervisor of Health System Security & Cyber at Israel Ministry of Health. The new system is expected to protect healthcare facilities from cyber attacks, and will be available for free to all health organisations in Israel. This way the ministry is aiming to raise the health care sector’s resilience.
There had been “a significant increase” in attacks on healthcare
organisations, said Elyiahu, since many employees had been working remotely and
hackers took advantage of their less protected home systems. Moreover, he noted
that many of those attacks were state-sponsored as many had been “looking to
get their hands on solutions to the virus.”
In Europe, one of the latest victims to cybercriminals has been the
Germany-based Fresenius Group, which provides products and services for
dialysis, hospitals, and inpatient and outpatient care. As reported
by KrebsOnSecurity, the attack is attributed to the relatively new Snake ransomware,
that is being used to block IT systems and data of large companies in exchange
for a ransom. The attack has been confirmed to the outlet by Fresenius
spokesperson Matt
Kuhn.
Back in April, the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) issued awarning about “a significant increase in the number of
attempted ransomware attacks against key organizations and infrastructure
engaged in the virus response.”
And on 5 May, the U.S and the U.K.’s national cybersecurity authorities (the
Department
of Homeland Security‘s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
(CISA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), respectively)issued
a joint
advisory highlighting so-called ‘advanced persistent threat’ groups’
activity against organisation involved in both national and international
COVID-19 responses. The advisory describes some of the methods used by the
hackers and provides mitigation advice (the full text is available here).
Back in Israel, Professor Yoram Weiss, director of Hadassah Medical Center
at Ein Kerem in Jerusalem, told The Media Line about hackers trying to access
electronic medical records and IT infrastructure of healthcare organisations as
responding to the pandemic, hospitals are creating new infrastructure for
critical-care patients. The targets include, for example, telemedicine
facilities, which are especially vulnerable to cyberattacks, but also more ‘traditional’
systems, such as air conditioning, which, if infiltrated, could be used to
spread the coronavirus among hospital wards.
According to the CISA and NCSC’s joint alert, one of the main
types of attacks is password
spraying, or trying several commonly used passwords over a large number of
accounts. “These attacks are successful because, for any given large set of
users, there will likely be some with common passwords,” the advisory said.
Image credit: Samuel
Dutler via iStock
