Malware infection is caused by the import of patient data from a storage medium brought by the patient. Medical images are frequently given to patients on a CD, which the patient can take to a hospital where a follow-up treatment is scheduled.
Fremont CA: In recent years, the healthcare sector has been impacted by cybersecurity issues. As the use of the internet has grown over the last two decades, hospitals around the world have followed suit. In healthcare, patient health information and electronic health records are now routinely used.
While this adoption of technology is beneficial to the healthcare industry, there has also been a significant increase in cybersecurity incidents such as computer viruses, patient data theft, ransomware, and publication. Previously, the majority of these attacks were widespread and random, but several cyberattacks in 2019 were specifically targeting medical network protocols and file formats, particularly digital imaging.
Patient Data That Contains Malware
Malware infection is caused by the import of patient data from a storage medium brought by the patient. Medical images are frequently given to patients on a CD, which the patient can take to a hospital where a follow-up treatment is scheduled. These images are imported into the hospital's local PACS infrastructure. However, a virus in the computer used to create the patient CD could infect this file, and the virus will spread wherever this file is opened after that.At this point, the malware could intercept network traffic and recognize logins and passwords, allowing attackers to take control of the server. This could result in ransomware.
