June 12, 2024- Burgeoning cyberattacks against healthcare provider organizations, payers, suppliers, vendors and retail corporations continue to make headlines and tax both the defensive and offensive playbooks of the victims, no matter how many resources – financial, operational, technological or workforce – they erect to fortify and shore up IT infrastructure.
In fact, a wealth of studies and surveys hearkening back to the pre-pandemic years show that healthcare organizations are still playing catch-up in a desperate but perpetual chase toward cybersecurity throughout the enterprise.
The digital realm in which healthcare supply chain operates comprises networks and clouds accessed internally by large groups of staffers and contractors as well as externally by remote versions of the same, a trend accelerated by the global pandemic.
Much of the media coverage on cyberattacks in the U.S. healthcare sector centers on breaches for financial and patient data rather than on product and service strategic sourcing, contracting and transactions, but this doesn’t lure supply chain executives into a false sense of security.
Whether hackers electronically reach into contracting catalogues, email systems, product and purchasing databases all linked with clinical, financial and patient systems, hackers and hacktivists (from thrill-seeking enthusiasts to hired contractual goons or corporate stooges) know how to navigate their way through the complex web of confidential, private and heretofore thought-to-be-secure information via data breaches, phishing scams and ransomware attacks.
Read More in the latest issue of JHC Magazine.