I have a unique perspective on healthcare cybersecurity, having spent the beginning of my professional career as a practicing nurse and later moving into cybersecurity consulting. That perspective helps me critically examine the security programs at the many hospitals, physicians and other provider offices that I visit as part of my CDW practice. During conversations with healthcare IT teams, I’ve identified three crucial best practices to protect patient information: vulnerability assessments, penetration tests and incident response playbooks.

Let’s explore each of these critical topics.

Vulnerability scanning, penetration testing and red teaming each play a vital role in an organization’s security program. It’s important that technology leaders understand the different roles they play so they may combine them in the manner most effective for their organizations.

Last year, I consulted with a pastor whose church had suffered a ransomware attack. This particular church had an extensive fundraising operation designed to support a local homeless program, and the ransomware infection impacted all of the data used to solicit donations — and ground those important efforts to a halt.

Like many nonprofits, the church fallen into a common trap: the fallacy of thinking that they don’t have any important data that would attract attackers. But, in this world, every organization is a potentially lucrative target.

With the rise of ransomware attacks against organizations of all sizes, cybersecurity has become a top priority for even small businesses. Unfortunately, the unique challenges of a smaller organization can make securing the IT environment particularly difficult. IT staffs are typically stretched thin and asked to be knowledgeable across a variety of domains. Additionally, allocating…

Cybersecurity has reached the boardroom. After years of clamoring for attention, the CEOs of U.S.-based corporations told the Conference Board that cybersecurity is their top external concern for 2019, ranking it above economic challenges, trade threats and political instability. Unfortunately, while executives are paying increased attention to security, the message they receive is often unclear….

How great is the security challenge that schools and school districts face? A 2018 report by SecurityScorecard gave the education sector an “F” for cybersecurity. Cybercriminals attempted 4 billion attacks — the majority of which were phishing scams — on school computer systems in Kentucky in just one year, the state Department of Education’s CIO…