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The Worst Hack In Healthcare History

the biggest Cyber attack in healthc care history just happened and somehow no one even knows about it buckle up because I'm not going to just tell you of how problematic this is for the entire industry but I'll also blow your mind as to how this hack and others like it are literally killing people huge thanks to Bit Defender for sponsoring this video imagine this you're riding your bike to your favorite coffee shop you've been looking forward to catching up with an old friend all week everything is going your way until out of nowhere a neighborhood dog runs directly in your path you swerve frantically and get tossed clear off the bike landing hard on your back right on the unforgiving pavement you try to slowly gather yourself and roll onto your side but you scream out as a lightning bolt of pain shoots down your spine that can't be good better stay put so you reach into your pocket grab your phone dial 911 they pull up minutes later and leap out with a backboard and a c-spine stabilizer with a lot of help and even more shooting pain you're you're able to get to the ER when you get there you notice the waiting room is absolutely stuffed with people what is going on it's 1 p.m. on a Thursday how are there this many emergencies are they short staff was there a huge accident or something your back pings you with one more lightning bolt of pain and you winse out loud an hour passes 2 hours pass three you can't believe the low level of care that's being offered to you why can't they do better than this long wa times can be caused by a million different things but in this case believe it or not that weight was caused by computer hackers hackers how in the world is that possible strangely Healthcare is by far the most susceptible industry in the US to cyber attacks it may not be targeted as much as let's say financial institutions but the success rate is far higher in fact over 90% of healthcare organizations had dealt with data breaches in recent years that's almost every single one this includes Nationwide hospitals single doctor practices health insurance companies and even pharmacies and the number of attacks has increased every year since 2018 so this isn't even getting better most of these data breaches about 70% have come in the form of ransomware a type of malicious software that encrypts your data usually until a sum of money is paid to the hackers however being you're dealing with criminals there are actually no guarantees that they'll back off once you pay up sometimes they will increase their demands or simply leave everything locked and Disappear With all the money it may be helpful to know that generally the FBI discourages Cyber attack victims from paying Ransom because it actually incentivizes hackers to keep hacking Healthcare organizations that have been targeted usually end up forking over the money because the stakes there are so incredibly high it's really a matter of life and death the Stark reality is that when hospitals are attacked it can be so debilitating that they're forced to shut down for weeks on end that's because the hacks usually lock access to electronic health records and all the patient information stored within them medication allergies previous diagnoses lab results X-rays and so many more this has terrible consequences significantly Extended Stays medication Mix-Ups canceled surgeries and having to redirect ER patients drastically increasing ER times yeah that was you in our earlier hypothetical worst of all ransomware attacks can absolutely result in death let me say that again ransomware attacks can Absolut abolutely result in death a 2021 study found that following a ransomware attack mortality rates increased at 25% of the hospitals they surveyed when you limit a hospital speed efficiency and access to critical patient data patients end up suffering in fact John riggy cyber security specialist for the American Hospital Association suggests that we need to start viewing these attacks not as Financial crimes but is threat to life crimes as I mentioned earlier this problem has been bubbling up for some time time but earlier this year February to be exact we unfortunately suffered the largest Healthcare Cyber attack in history and here's the thing it wasn't even a hospital that was attacked nor an insurance company or a pharmacy but it still brought all these industries to their knees how's that possible well the hackers basically attack the glue that exists between the entire industry let me explain imagine Healthcare in the United States is a play or a movie there a ton of collaboration needed to make it work this massive Cyber attack targeted the backstage crew all the people who largely go on scene behind the scenes but have a massive impact on the final result in this scenario the backstage crew was a company called change Healthcare owned by United Health Group in a nutshell change Healthcare provides Tech that handles critical aspects like billing and transfer of data what does that mean well let's go back to that emergency room story for a moment where you fell off your bike you eventually get seen by a doctor and tell them the whole story of the accident the treatment plan may have included x-rays MRIs painkillers surgery all the above maybe for each of these things the hospital would have essentially ping your insurance company using change Healthcare technology in order to confirm coverage and get prior authorization however if change healthc care were to be offline due to a Cyber attack either you would have to pay 100% out of pocket for your care or the hospital will be forced to add your care to a massive backlog of unpaid Insurance bills it should be said that change Healthcare hack didn't affect 100% of patients in the US but it's estimated to have affected one out of three patients that's 15 billion claims change Healthcare was the middleman for tens of millions of insurance claims every day so that means virtually everyone in healthare is being touched by this directly because they're waiting to get paid no exaggeration here the hack was costing medical providers up to $1 million daily while Hospital systems were slightly better equipped to handle that because of deeper Pockets smaller practices had to seek out loans in order to keep the doors open if doctors can collect money from insurers it becomes far more difficult or even impossible to cover basic expenses like salaries rent bills or even critical supplies like life-saving medications time out the healthcare industry is clearly susceptible to hacks but you don't need to be a national Healthcare company to get targeted by cyber criminals individuals and small businesses are targets of cyber hacking every day that's why I'm so great to be able to tell you about this video sponsor Bit Defender a global leader in cyber security they provide protection across all devices on Windows Mac IOS and Android for individuals like you and your family all the way up to multinational corporations including Healthcare organizations like the ones in this video they help protect against identity theft offer a robust password manager and even have a number of Parental tools to help keep kids safe online which after the conversation I had with the FBI in my podcast I think is more important than ever they've actually built 32 free tools to help you fight ransomware that have helped avert $ 1.6 billion dollar of Ransom payments and while I know the team at Bit Defender working day and night to keep devices safe what gives them an edge is that for the last 16 years they have leaned hard into Ai and machine learning to scale their protection to unprecedented levels their systems review 50 billion queries a day and catch 400 cyber threats every minute that being said said there's a lot of competition in Industry when it comes to cyber security but the experts have spoken over the last decade Bit Defender has won five cyber security product of the Year Awards five championships in 10 years sounds like a dynasty click the link in the description to get started with Bit Defender to protect you and your devices all right let's get back to the story and some important tips of how to keep your Healthcare info safe one of the more less talked about aspect of these Healthcare cyber attacks is a theft of patient Health Data believe it or not a stolen medical record can bring in a lot more money than a stolen credit card number that's partly because medical information can't be cancelled or changed like a card can and Records can be used to commit healthc care fraud which honestly is relatively easy to get away with the healthcare organizations that would detect fraud insurers mainly aren't exactly on top of it think about it your credit card company probably sends you fraud detection alerts anytime you travel or spend more than usual and there are plenty of credit monitoring apps to help you stay on top of your purchasing activity but health insurance companies aren't doing these things after the change hack United Health said screenshots of stolen files containing patient data had been posted on the dark web how did hackers steal a purported 6 terabytes of patient data if change Healthcare was such a critical player in our medical system surely it had airtight security right nope absolutely not in fact it's completely possible that you routinely use higher security standards when logging into the Starbucks app on your phone that is if you have two-factor authentication enabled for those who aren't familiar two-factor authentication requires that you have more than just a password in order to log in that could be an answer to a security question a code sent to your phone or facial recognition among other things but change Healthcare only required a measly password to gain entry and wreck havoc on our system Andrew witty United Health CEO testified at a senate hearing that he was deeply deeply sorry for the attack and expressed frustration upon learning that change Healthcare did not have better security in place at the time this is certainly an uncomfortable Trend throughout the entire healthcare industry it's not nearly as secure it should be especially when compared to other Industries like banking sometimes this can boil down to limited resources hospitals especially the smaller ones often have to prioritize things like medical equipment over cyber security so here we are this video is being filmed in June 2024 the dust has mostly settled from the change Healthcare hack although we can't be certain about the status of the stolen information United Health CEO claims that they basically rebuilt change healthc care from scratch so there are no elements of the old attacked environment he did admit that they paid a ransom of about $22 Million worth of bitcoin to the attackers and we are hopefully working our way to a more secure Health Care system as a whole where does that leave you assuming you're not a hospital administrator government official or cyber security expert is there anything you can do to minimize these cyber attacks well quite possibly especially especially if you use a wireless medical device a huge concern with cyber attacks on Healthcare is something called an iot attack or Internet of Things attacked it's also referred to as a device hack when hackers break into a device on the hospital's Network today many medical devices that we use Are Wireless pacemakers IV pumps ultrasounds medication dispensers the list just truly goes on and on if they got into the wrong hands remotely controlled devices can go from life saving tools to life ending ones hackers can do things like disable devices entirely drain their batteries change information displayed on their screens and reprogram them to administer different medication doses or even admit dangerous electric shocks it's like straight out of a horror movie it took some convincing for the healthcare industry to acknowledge how big of a threat these device hacks truly are but in 2011 One Security expert provided irrefutable evidence at a conference when he remotely disabled his own insulin pump so again what could be done to prevent these devices attacks both on the hospital end and on yours well two common vulnerabilities in medical devices that are theoretically possible for hospitals to address are one default passwords that are way too easy to figure out and two default privacy settings are far too LAX and as a simple first step hospital it Department should start requiring multiactor authentication to log into any connected device for you experts recommend contacting Health Care Providers or facilities at the first sign of anything suspicious like unusual changes in data displays also it's ideal to enable all notifications from Healthcare Systems so if there is a breach you'll know right away and can take action to stay safe and for the love of God update your software because the longer outdated software is used the more time hackers have to identify security holes and exploit them speaking of hacks here's one Health hack from every medical specialty some super useful stuff in here as always stay happy and healthy [Music]

Dr.

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