Attempts to hack into hospitals' electronic records are increasing nationally. In response, Wyoming hospitals are beefing up their security.
Campbell County Health's system was subject to a ransomware attack earlier this year. It took the hospital 17 days to regain full control over its information. According to a study by a cybersecurity firm, Malwarebytes, attempted malware attacks to health care systems nationally increased by 45 percent in 2019.
Eric Boley, president of Wyoming Hospital Association, said Wyoming hospitals are subject to attempted attacks on a regular basis. He said most hospitals in the state have their own unique systems, which makes it harder for one attack to have a big impact.
"But I also think that it might work against us because a lot of our [hospitals] are standalone and so resources to combat and prepare for cyber-attacks, instead of having a real deep bench to help with that, everyone's kind of left on their own to come up with the ways they want to protect themselves," said Boley.
It is a federal requirement to use electronic medical records. Boley said hospitals are complying, "but it opens us up to liability. And so I know that a great deal of time, energy and resources are spent in every facility around the state trying to build protections either through their firewalls, through security, through encryption to mitigate as much as they can."
If patient information is hacked, it can be used in identity theft, which has grave consequences for patients and hospitals. Boley said hospitals around the state have invested millions of dollars to establish electronic health records and secure them.
Have a question about this story? Contact the reporter, Kamila Kudelska, at kkudelsk@uwyo.edu.
