According to a report, 73.7% of healthcare organizations pay ransomware demands

According to a recent study released on Tuesday, healthcare organizations have a 73.7% chance of complying with a ransomware demand and are the fourth most often targeted industry worldwide (13%).

Organizations are taking precautions to lessen the effects of a ransomware assault as they grow more frequent, according to Arete, a global cyber risk management firm.

Backups, multifactor authentication (MFA), and endpoint detection and response (EDR), among other effective safeguards, may all contribute to the security of your company.

According to Chris Martenson, chief data officer of Arete, “Healthcare organizations are frequently targets of ransomware because the presence of sensitive data, such as PII and PHI, can increase the likelihood of ransom payment.”

In order to deploy efficient mitigation strategies and controls, healthcare organizations must either create internal cybersecurity teams or work with a third-party security partner, according to the expert.

MFA is used by less than one in four healthcare organizations, and little over half say they regularly backup their data.

Additionally, the research said that one of the best strategies to reduce the chance of payment in the healthcare industry is simply to have an EDR platform.

In 100% of the ransomware incidents that affected the healthcare industry, data encryption was the most effective impact tactic. ‘Inhibiting system recovery’ was the second most common strategy.

According to the research, user education and data backups are two crucial safeguards to take into account in order to reduce the danger of data exfiltration.