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The Center for Internet Security last week began offering its ransomware protection service free to private hospitals.

The service, which blocks network requests from an organization to known harmful web domains, is already available free to public hospitals through the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). It can help block malicious links and prevent malware contained in phishing emails from activating, even if clicked on by an unsuspecting user, providing an added layer of defense.  

"The COVID-19 pandemic has made hospitals an even larger target for malicious cyber threats than they were already,” Ed Mattison, executive vice president of CIS operations and security services. “While other commercial cybersecurity organizations are certainly supporting hospitals and hospital systems, our nonprofit status and mission focus enable us to offer this service at no cost and at scale to any hospital or system that can benefit from it.”

John Riggi, AHA senior advisor for cybersecurity and risk said, “CIS and Akamai coming together to provide their technology and expertise to help defend hospitals at no cost is a positive development for the field during a time of heightened cybercriminal activity. Our adversaries are agnostic and collaborative in their approach – they assist each other to develop and launch their malware and ransomware attacks against all sectors, without distinction - so we need to take the same community approach when it comes to cyber defense and combine our resources and expertise.”

For more information on this program or other cyber and risk issues, please contact Riggi at jriggi@aha.org.