6 Healthcare Cybersecurity, Ransomware Predictions to Watch in 2022

We reached out to six healthcare executives for their trends and predictions on healthcare cybersecurity and ransomware to watch in 2022.

Milan Shah, Chief Technology Officer of Biofourmis

Cyberattacks on hospitals and health systems will continue their rapid pace in 2022, but as more providers launch hospitals at home and remote patient management programs and the technology has to traverse enterprise firewall boundaries, it provides attackers an extensive new surface area to attack. The best defense against these will be to choose and implement technical solutions that have the highest degree of secure communications between the patient-facing part of the solution and the backend systems they communicate with.

Leon Lerman, co-founder and CEO of Cynerio

While cyber attacks on critical infrastructure – such as the Colonial Pipeline and a Florida water plant – created a lot of buzz this year, last year we saw a 123% increase in the number of ransomware attacks on the healthcare industry – a trend that has unfortunately continued to plague the healthcare industry throughout 2021. Worse yet, attacks on hospitals have turned deadly. A recent Ponemon Institute report found that ransomware attacks on healthcare providers can lead to increased mortality, and the first ransomware-related fatality in the U.S. was recently reported at Alabama-based Springhill Medical Center.

As we head into 2022, it is likely we will see an increase in both the sheer number of attacks on hospitals as well as severity. It will be critical for hospitals to have proactive response strategies in place to prevent attacks and ensure continuity of care in the event of an attack. Additionally, more government intervention is needed – as has been the case for cyber attacks like that on Colonial Pipeline – to ensure hospitals are prepared with the tools they need to address the evolving threat landscape in healthcare. It could be the difference between life or death.

Tim Quigley, Chief Client Officer, CloudWave

Mark Potter, Chief Information Security Officer at Backblaze

Mac McMillan, CEO of Cynergistek

James Carder, CSO of LogRhythm