The Very Personal Side of a Cyber Attack
When I speak to folks who have experienced a cyber attack, it’s the financial hit that they talk about…it’s easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But what they don’t mention, that is just as devastating, is the very emotional side of a cyber attack.
As a part of incident responses, through personal experience and studying the aftermath, I hear the survivors speak to a sense of exposure, of raw vulnerability. It's hard to quantify this feeling of vulnerability when something you assumed was protected turns out to be so easily breached. Think about what you put into your practice every day, your hard work every hour while you are with patients and your staff. What if that was ripped away and someone wants to charge you to get your life’s work back?
It's not a common question when you are moving through an investigation, but how you feel is typically what helps people value the cybersecurity prevention process. Preparing for an attack helps not only fortify your defenses, but also gives you a sense of what surviving an attack feels like and what it would feel like to lose what’s precious to you.
Every day we see news articles of breaches and of personal and identifiable information splashed out there. We have run into instances where someone's breached information led to older generations of folks being extorted and fraudulently attacked. What if the data that was breached out of your office is the starting point for a vishing attack on your most vulnerable population? A vishing attack is when someone calls a victim with known information in order to extort money out of them, something like, “I see you are scheduled for a crown or implant, I can take that payment now if you would like…”. When you take an oath to protect your patients, it includes their data as well.
When I went in months after an incident response to one office, I asked if there was anything that was going on, if there was anything we needed to handle today. The office manager's comment was, “Oh yes, the Server.” She said every day there is a moment when she logs in that she fears the server will be locked again and they will have to deal with another attack. Actually she’s right. You are 36% more likely to be attacked if you have already had a cyber attack, so it's a constant worry.
I saw an article today where hackers had actually apologized for smearing children's images and personal information from the hack of a child care facility. The comment was the hackers were new and as they become more seasoned, it's all about the money regardless of the collateral damage. It caught the news attention because that never happens, but really brought to life what awful things are done in the pursuit of that business.
No matter your stance on cybersecurity for your business, the fact of the matter is that we all need to work together to protect the most vulnerable populations out there including our own patients and clients. Not everyone out there selling you cybersecurity tools understands that a cyber attack is about people. We all need to work together to protect our businesses and those we care for. Contact us to learn more about protecting your livelihood, your patients, your families. Peace of mind is priceless.
