Report: 46 Percent of Orgs Hit By Cyberattack in Past 24 Months

On Aug. 15, New York City-based Cynerio, a provider of healthcare IoT cybersecurity, released a report conducted in partnership with the Traverse Cit, Mich.-based Ponemon Institute that looks at the impacts of cyberattacks on healthcare facilities and network-connected IoT medical devices. The report, entitled, “The Insecurity of Connected Devices in HealthCare 2022 Report,” surveyed 517 healthcare system leaders in the U.S.

“The report details multiple alarming trends including widespread and repeated attacks, financial losses measured in the millions, and frequent failures to take basic cybersecurity measures,” a press release on the report states.

Key highlights from the report include:

• Fifty-six percent of respondents say their organization experience one or more cyberattacks over the past 24 months involving IoT devices.
• Fifty-eight percent say they averaged nine or more cyberattacks during the 24 month period
• Forty-five percent of respondents say there were adverse impacts on patient care
• Fifty-three percent say these adverse impacts resulted in increased mortality rates
• Seventy-one percent of respondents say their security risks presented by IoT devices are high or very high
• Twenty-one percent say they are at a mature stage of proactive security actions
• Forty-six percent of those who experienced an attack resulted in ransom being paid
• Thirty-two percent of the ransoms paid were in the $240,000 - $500,000 range

Larry Ponemon, founder and chairman of the Ponemon Institute was quoted in the release saying that “Until recently, the wide scale of cyberattacks on healthcare systems was difficult to measure and typically spoken of anecdotally. Our team at Ponemon Institute is proudly pioneering research with organizations like Cynerio to better define the risks hospitals and their patients confront. We hope this report enables healthcare leaders, policymakers and device manufacturers to more effectively address the cybersecurity threats they encounter.”

The full report can be found here.