Wannacry was a warning to the U.S. Healthcare community, the chaos that ensued in the U.K. is a cautionary tale of the effects and severity of healthcare breaches. Over 300,000 companies across 150 countries were impacted by WannaCry ransomware, with the U.K. National Health Serivce (NHS) getting hit particularly hard causing thousands of operations and appointments to be canceled. An interesting note is that the NHS wasn’t targeted specifically, but became victim because its systems weren’t secure. The U.S. is not immune, already this year we have experienced some of the biggest health breaches causing detrimental impact across the board.  As the threats continue to swarm, we need to take a hard look at what can be done to improve the U.S healthcare cybersecurity or risk becoming the next headline. 

Post sponsored by Veritas

It’s been more than a year since the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach that exposed the personal information of millions of U.S. Federal workers. You’ve probably seen the news – the breach exposed personal information from a jaw-dropping 22 million people including finger prints, social security numbers and other private information. Victims included current and former Federal employees, retirees, contractors and others who had undergone Federal background checks. It brought to light the need for extreme vigilance in today’s cyber world.

As Washington, D.C. battles a hazy, hot, and humid summer, it also continues to battle a more complex threat – cyber attacks. The public sector is leading a data breach shake down as organizations and agencies look to stop hackers from exposing the United States’ most secure and sensitive data.