Caleb Barlow Discusses Healthcare Industry Ransomware Attacks and Measures to Prevent Cybercrimes (October 27th)

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Computer or cybercrimes against health care providers, moreover hospitals, disenable computer networks holding them for ransom, frequently for a bitcoin fee.  Though these attacks date back at least 30 years they have become increasingly prevalent since 2010.   Last month, Universal Health Services, with 400 locations moreover in the US, suffered a cyberattack.  Recently too, the first known death resulted from a ransomware attack in Germany when a patient did not survive transfer to another hospital.  Earlier this month, COVID-19 vaccine trials were delayed by ransomware attack.  Likely the most costly ransomware attack was to the UK’s NHS in 2017 that amounted to an estimated $120 million in IT costs and lost productivity.   In 2020 state legislatures introduced more than 280 cybersecurity-related bills, enacting several.  The US Senate and House passed seven cybersecurity bills this past Congress, however, none specifically addressed the HC industry and none became law. 

During this 29 minute conversation, Mr. Barlow explains the effect ransomware products have on clinical computer systems, the frequencies of these computer crimes in the health care sector and how they are resolved or at what price to the hospital or other provider organization.  He discusses how these attacks can be prevented and what national regulatory and legislative actions have been or should be taken, e.g., what ransomware-related lessons the health care sector can learn from the federal government procurement process.   

Mr. Caleb Barlow is the President and Chief Executive Officer of CynergisTek, an information security and privacy consulting firm focused on the healthcare IT industry.  Prior to joining CynergisTek, Mr. Barlow led the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence organization.  He has also led the integration efforts of on multiple IBM acquisitions.  In 2018, Caleb invented the Cyber Tactical Operations Center which is a first-of-its-kind training, simulation, and security operations center on wheels.  Mr. Barlow's has a broad background having led technical teams in product development, product management, strategy, marketing, and cloud service delivery.   He has appeared on the TED stage, TODAY, and regularly appears on national news broadcasts.  Mr. Barlow's work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, and dozens of other publications.  He has testified before the Congress and before the United Nations by invitation of the President of the U.N. General Assembly.  Mr. Barlow has been in leadership roles at two successful startups, including Syncra Systems which is now part of Oracle, and Ascendant Technology which was acquired by Avent.  Caleb also holds multiple patents in the field of Unified Communication.

For information on CynergisTek go to: https://cynergistek.com/

The Treasury Department October 1 advisory concerning facilitating ransomware payments noted during this conversation is at: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/ofac_ransomware_advisory_10012020_1.pdf