Ransomware Protection & Response for Clinical Labs, Hospitals, and Pathology Groups: Effective Steps for Protecting Your LIS, EHR, and Other IT from an Encryption Attack

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This is a little-known fact: Each week, several hospitals, clinical labs, and other providers discover that their digital services are encrypted and inaccessible. Even worse: The number of successful encryption attacks is increasing month by month.

But you don’t hear about most of the weekly encryption attacks on healthcare providers because they are kept secret from the public, with a few exceptions. The reason is simple: healthcare providers do not want the public to know that they paid a ransom to obtain the de-encryption key necessary to restore access to their organization’s vital information systems and software.

The lack of awareness and information about what is really happening puts clinical labs and pathology groups at significant risk and underprepared. Clinical labs are an attractive target of hackers who encrypt their LIS and other systems because, not only might they pay a ransom, but if the hackers extract the patient data before encrypting the digital systems, they can sell individual patient data for between $400 and $1,200 per individual, according to Experian, the credit reporting agency.

The upcoming, essential Dark Daily webinar, Ransomware Protection & Response for Clinical Labs, Hospitals, and Pathology Groups: Effective Steps for Protecting Your LIS, EHR, and Other IT from an Encryption Attack, will help to educate the lab and broader community on how to address the surging risk of a ransomware attack—both proactively and in response. The 90-minute webinar takes place on Thursday, August 19, 2021, at 1 p.m. Eastern and will be available on-demand after. Learn more or register here.

The webinar features experts Emily Johnson of the law firm McDonald Hopkins and healthcare cybercrime defense expert Paul Caron from Arete, who are contacted for help each week by multiple hospitals, labs, and medical clinics that were attacked, had their digital systems encrypted, and received a ransom demand of hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars from hackers. They’ll cover crucial best practices designed to provide training and decision-making skills for handling a ransomware attack on hospital and health system clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology practices.

Full details on topics, speakers, and sessions and how to register for this essential webinar can be found here.

For additional information, contact: Amanda Curtis, 512-264-7103

About The Dark Report

Established in 1995, The Dark Report is the leading source of exclusive business intelligence for laboratory CEOs, COOs, CFOs, Pathologists, and Senior industry executives. It is widely read by leaders in laboratory medicine and diagnostics. The Dark Report produces DarkDaily, as well as the renowned Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management every spring.