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PHISHING
ATTACK
A Real and Ubiquitous Threat for Healthcare Organizations
T
hough it seems that phishing
is an outdated mode of
hacking, the brutal truth is
that it is still alive and is a real threat
to the healthcare industry. In fact, it
has become a preferred method for
hackers to breach healthcare
organizations to steal valuable
medical data and has devastated the
healthcare industry over recent years.
The primary purpose of a phishing
attack is to gain a grip in the
organization by infecting a computer
or other endpoint.
A recent data breach investigations
report has found that financial
pretexting, i.e. obtaining financial
information under false pretenses and
phishing has represented around 95
percent of all breaches, with email
being the key element.
Attackers use various social
engineering tricks to catch the victim
into clicking on the malicious link.
22 | March 2019 |
They search for public sources to
fetch information about the
organization in the email to make it
look trustworthy. The attackers often
create an urgent scene. For an
instance, there is some admin IT task
that needs to be done to access to
their email, and then they ask us to
click on the link given and the
system is attacked.
Medical Records are their Prime
Target
Today, attackers are becoming more
successful at penetrating networks
because their techniques are getting
more precise and sophisticated. A
recent survey expressed that
attackers are mostly attracted to
valuable medical records. Over one-
quarter of the organizations had
experienced a successful phishing
attack that had infected their network
with malware. Also, attackers are
very conscious of timing for phishing