Killnet racks up 22 more healthcare cybervictims and data thefts; whitepaper on best defense practices

February 3, 2023 | by

Ransomware attacks keep rolling through healthcare organizations. The latest tally just for Killnet, the rogue group of pro-Russian hacktivists, is up to 22 hospitals from Los Angeles to Egg Harbor, NJ. Becker’s HealthIT on Tuesday reported on 17 listed by BetterCyber on 31 January with another six yesterday. (BetterCyber’s Twitter feed subtracted Dartmouth Health Cheshire Medical Center from the victim list yesterday, thus 22.) Most affected are regional and community hospitals.

According to SC Media’s report on an HHS Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) Alert, health and personal data were ‘exfiltrated’ onto the Killnet list. Quite oddly, and this Editor is sure it’s just a coincidence, the HC3 analyst note linked is offline; on a search to cross-check the link, the HHS pages show up in index form. Also Becker’s HealthIT 1 Feb 

The attacks were DDoS (distributed denial of service), described by HC3 as “thousands of connection requests and packets to be sent to the target server or website per minute, slowing down or even stopping vulnerable systems.” This ties up IT and slows down services such as websites or information portals. The danger in DDoS attacks, as noted in previous coverage [TTA 22 Dec 22] is that DDoS can be cover for other cybercrimes or information gathering in preparation for same. 

How can a healthcare organization ‘keep calm’ and lessen the impact of cyberattack, as it’s ‘not if, but when?’ A whitepaper by Cynerio,  focuses on microsegmentation, a network security technique that logically divides the data center into distinct security segments down to the individual workload/workflow level, and then defines security controls. (In marketing, market profiling down to buyer personas is similar.) The paper looks at how organizations should focus on four areas: visibility, risk mitigation, real-time defense, and regulatory compliance, then work through multiple considerations. Happily, the whitepaper (no registration required) is mostly understandable to those outside of IT. It also provides three case studies and checklists. Cynerio is a NYC-based healthcare-focused cybersecurity management company that helps hospitals to manage risk and secure their IoT, IoMT, and unmanaged IT and mobile devices.

Mid-week news roundup (updated 18 Aug): CVS eyeing Signify Health for in-home/VBC; Babylon Health mixed pic of revenue and losses up; Geisinger doubles telemed specialties; connected IoT devices expand cyber-insecurity (more); Owlet layoffs

August 11, 2022 | by

CVS has dropped another sandal as to their quest to add primary care and home health to their portfolio [TTA 5 Aug]. Reports indicates that CVS Health is bidding to acquire Signify Health, which is up for sale. Signify is best known as a major provider of in-home health care in both evaluations and community-based services, with users such as health plans, health systems, community groups, non-profits, and government. In March, they added provider value-based care with Caravan Health, a mid-sized Accountable Care Organization (ACO) management service organization (MSO), for $250 million.  This would give CVS both leverage in in-home care and access to value-based care models in health systems and practices, adding a network of jumbo (100,000 lives+) ACOs to Aetna’s 500 ACOs.

Signify did take a bit of a bath with its acquisition/merger of Remedy Partners in 2019 which marked their entry into the Federal shared savings programs around Episodes of Care. While it created a $600 million company. Remedy’s Episodes of Care in the CMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) program was always problematic for Signify on multiple levels (Editor’s experience). Signify announced its exit from the successor BPCI-A (Advanced) model last month to concentrate on home care and the Caravan business. The wind-down, which will take some time as these are Federal programs through CMS, will save Signify about $115-120 million in costs, compared to their annual direct and shared costs of $145 million. Restructuring costs such as severance may be only $35 million. After IPO-ing in February 2021 at $24 per share, it has only recently climbed to $23, having recently hit a 52-week low of $10.70. FierceHealthcare, HealthcareFinanceNews

Updated Perhaps in preparation for acquisition, Signify Health is shedding 489 people starting 1 October, including 45 in Connecticut, with the remainder in Texas, South Dakota, and New York. The information comes from required notices to the Connecticut Department of Labor. The majority of employees affected are remote workers. It appears to be related to Signify’s winding up of BPCI and Episodes of Care activity which are likely on calendar year contracts. The legacy company, Remedy Partners, had been headquartered in Connecticut with staff in New York. Moving forward with layoffs now makes the company more attractive for sale, as the separation expenses will not be an acquiring company liability. The 1 October start date is also a tell.  CT Insider, Becker’s

A mixed picture for Babylon Health. Its Q2 results were up substantially in revenue–4.6x year-over-year from $57.5 million to $265.4 million–along with key indicators such as US members up 220% and a 7.5% improvement in medical margins over three quarters. The US has been very very good to Babylon with value-based care membership growing 3.2x year-on-year to a total of approximately 269,000 US VBC members with 40% of its VBC revenue from Medicare contracts. However, losses are up along with growth–$157.1 million compared to $64.9 million loss PY. Babylon at end of July announced worldwide layoffs of at least 100 people of its current 2,500 in their bid to save $100 million in Q3. Babylon release, Mobihealthnews

Geisinger Health was one of the pioneers in telehealth and remote patient monitoring, from ur-days in the early 2010s to today. Much of its patient base in Pennsylvania is rural or semi-rural, living well away from care centers, with a clinician base equally scattered. They went with a single system–Teladoc–integrated into Epic. By the early days of the pandemic, Geisinger was able to expand their telehealth coverage from 20 to more than 70 specialties, 200 providers to more than 2,000 providers, and over two years (2020-2022) completing over 784,000 telehealth visits to homes, local clinics, or local hospitals. Case study in HealthcareITNews

If you’re a health system CIO managing lots of connected devices, you may need to go to a psychiatrist with your feelings of insecurity. That’s the gist of a new report, the Insecurity of Connected Devices in Healthcare 2022. A new-to-this-Editor cybersecurity firm, Cynerio, partnered with researchers at the Ponemon Institute to survey 517 executives at US health systems to find that their Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)/Internet of Things (IoT) vulnerabilities haven’t changed much since this Editor banged the gong about them well before the pandemic:

  • Cyberattacks–frequent: 56% of respondents experienced 1+ cyberattacks in the past 24 months involving IoMT/IoT devices; 58% averaged 9+ cyberattacks. Adverse impacts on patient care were reported by 45% and 53% of those resulted in increased mortality rates. 24% of hospitals noted an impact on their mortality rates.
  • Data breaches are routine: 43% of hospitals had one in the past two years
  • Risks may be high, but the reaction is sluggish: 71% rated security risks as high or very high, but only 21% report a mature stage of proactive security actions. 46% performed accepted procedures such as scanning for devices, but only 33% keep inventory.
  • Ka-ching! Goes the ransomware! When attacked, 47% paid the ransom, and 32% were in the $250-500,000 range.

The full report is available for download here. Those who prefer a webinar must wait till 17 August at 2pm (EDT)–registration here.  Cynerio release, HealthcareITNews

Updated. Having sat in on the webinar, some further information points from the Ponemon survey deepen the ‘gravity of the risk’:

  • IoT is different because a hack or cyberransoming prevents the device from working. It isn’t fixed by backup as data can be.
  • Health systems are still using IoT computer systems running Windows XT/95–and earlier (!)
  • The average total cost of the largest data breaches is $13 million–the most common cost is in the $1-5 million range. 
  • 88% of these data breaches involved at least one IoT/MT device
  • Risks are known, but action is lagging. 72% of health organizations report a high level of urgency in securing devices–yet 67% of organizations do not keep an inventory of IoT/IoMT devices that they scan
  • 79% don’t consider their activities to be ‘mature’
  • Security investment doesn’t reflect the gravity of the risk–only 3.4% of IT budgets focus on IoT/MT device security.

And in sad layoff news, Owlet Baby Care is shedding an unknown number of employees. Here is the notice on LinkedIn. We noted their FDA problems and a fast pivot last in February, but their going public via a SPAC has been rocky at best with shares lingering at $2 from the IPO at $8. Marketing a pricey baby monitor direct to consumer is expensive, even if it meets a need, and this is likely a cash crunch. At least the ‘leader of people & culture’ is giving them a proper sendoff of thanks–and more usefully, providing their contact information for potential job openings with other companies.

[This is in contrast to the gone-viral spectacle of the CEO of something called HyperSocial posting on LinkedIn his angst about laying off staff–along with a selfie of him weeping. Not exactly confidence-making and All About Him. This Editor’s comment is one of 6,000-odd posts which are largely doubtful to negative.]

Orangeworm malware running wild in hospitals for three years: multiple reports

May 2, 2018 | by

Orangeworm hacker group finds easy pickings in hospitals and healthcare. Reports have multiplied in recent weeks of the Orangeworm hacker (or hackers) threatening healthcare organizations, frequently hospitals. Major info security groups have issued warnings: Symantec, Cynerio, BlackBerry, and Rubicon Labs. Symantec’s report states that 39 percent of the victims come from healthcare, with the remainder coming from manufacturing (15 percent), IT (15 percent), and logistics (8 percent), most with ties to the healthcare sector, and suspected vectors for a supply-chain attack.

‘Easy pickings’ include invading the old computer systems and controls prevalent worldwide in healthcare organizations: devices designed to control X-ray machines, MRIs, and even systems that help patients fill out consent forms. Orangeworm accesses IT systems using the Kwampirs trojan, taking advantage of the fact that most hospital IT systems are old, and as we know from the Petya and WannaCry attacks a year ago, their old, unprotected, and unpatched systems are uniquely vulnerable.

The semi-shocking fact is that this has been spreading quietly in healthcare organizations for over three years. The attackers used, according to both Symantec and Bleeping Computer,  malware that infected systems by copying itself across network shares, methods that are considered antiquated and “noisy”. Orangeworm also didn’t change its command and control (C&C) communication protocol over the three years, seemingly unconcerned about discovery.

The attacks appear targeted and coordinated. Speculation is that Orangeworm is a hacker or a small group of hackers targeting the rich information in healthcare records to sell on black markets. 17 percent of the attacks have been in the US, with UK, Germany, the Philippines, and Hungary at 5 percent each.

Symantec’s advice is extensive and detailed here, but can be summed up as: quit using Windows XP based systems, patch and update software and systems, use anti-virus, protect file sharing. Also Digital Health, Information Security Buzz News, Security Intelligence.