Rural hospitals are receiving help from Microsoft to address cybersecurity risks

Most cyberattacks in rural hospitals are due to human error.
(Photo by the National Cancer Institute, Unsplash)

Cyberattacks are targeted at rural hospitals due to their lack of resources, old computers and a high probability of human error.

Liz Carey at the Daily Yonder reported that, according to a Microsoft study, cyberattacks are a real threat to rural hospitals. “In 2022, 44 attacks in Texas exposed nearly 6 million patient records.”

In an interview with the Daily Yonder, Alan Morgan, president and CEO of the National Rural Health Association, addressed the issue of cybersecurity costs.

“It is important to note that large, well-financed national health systems have to date failed to prevent cyber-attacks on their organizations, so for a small rural hospital, with far fewer resources, the issue is even more daunting.”

Microsoft’s Cybersecurity for Rural Hospitals Program is providing more than 550 participating rural hospitals in America with free cybersecurity assessments, training and discounts on security products.

“Officials with Microsoft said the goal of the cybersecurity program is to address not only immediate risks facing the hospitals, but to encourage broader systemic challenges as well,” Carey wrote.

Tune in for public sector cybersecurity webinar on June 11

Cybersecurity is a growing issue for state and local governments, even in small towns or rural areas. Hackers have infiltrated many government and utility systems and demanded ransoms to unlock them in the past several years, and nearly 70,000 small and mid-sized water and wastewater systems in the U.S. are vulnerable to such attacks.

On June 11 from 1-3 p.m. ET, Route Fifty will host a free webinar exploring "new models for government leaders as they battle misinformation, secure an expanding array of civic technology, identify gaps in their agencies' own cyber strategies and build the cybersecurity workforce of the future." Click here for information, including a list of speakers and an agenda. Click here to register.

Cyberattack destroyed archives and classifieds for New York newspaper chain; see tips on how to defend against hackers

A small newspaper chain in upstate New York was hit by a cyberattack last weekend that destroyed digital archives and crippled the classified ad publishing system for three dailies.

"Servers targeted by criminals over the weekend were encrypted by a virus that spread quickly throughout Johnson Newspaper Corp., affecting servers used for internal sharing of content used to produce newspapers in Watertown, Hudson and Massena," Alec Johnson reports for the Watertown Daily Times. "Servers that host the newspaper website, subscriptions and email were not affected, according to an analysis by company information technology professionals."

The printing servers for the Times, the Hudson Register-Star, and the Courier Observer in Massena and Potsdam have been repaired, and classifieds are expected to be back online by the end of the week, Johnson reports.