FEATURE
PROTECTING YOUR PRACTICE FROM A CYBERATTACK
By Thomas Terronez, CEO - Medix Dental IT
C
yberattacks are an ever-growing business that
According to a 2021 IBM Commissioned Report, the average cost of a data
continues to evolve with new creative tactics
breach exceeded $4.2M during the pandemic. The report also stated the average
deployed every day. Through years of experience
time it takes to identify and contain a breach is 280 days. The top cybersecurity
and conducting assessments, we have found
threats the dental industry faces today are ransomware, insider threats,
cybersecurity in dental practices to be weak, making a
compromised business email and lack of software patching.
hacker’s job easy. Several factors can contribute to this. The main factors are current IT providers not doing what they should be, poorly
• Ransomware has become a lucrative business for cybercriminals. This is when
developed software, lack of knowledge and vetting IT vendors based on price.
a cybercriminal places malicious software on your computer, invades your
An IT provider should be doing more than automatic scans and data backups.
system and holds your information/data hostage until you pay a hefty fee. This
Protecting a practice needs to go beyond that, or it is easy to fall victim to a
type of cyberattack can leave your practice inoperable for months.
cyberattack.
Cyberattacks could lead to: • Lost production, remediation, reputation and reacquisition • Loss of patient trust and patient fallout due to not protecting their personal information • HIPAA fines
• Insider threats and social engineering are when hackers pay employees for their work login credentials. They use the credentials to perform malicious acts on your systems and practice data. The employee will claim, “I don’t know how my email got hacked,” and the company believes this due to the lack of evidence to find the true source of the security break. • A business email is compromised when a cybercriminal gains access to your email system. The most common trend is when the hacker spoofs incoming/ outgoing emails to trick you into sending money for a fake expense or
• And more
I
12 2nd Quarter 2022 mddsdentist.com
