FlexPod Fights Ransomware in Healthcare
Ketan Mota
Did you know that In 2016, 88% of all ransomware was detected in the healthcare industry? That’s according to Solutionary’s Security Engineering Research Team (SERT) Quarterly Threat Report for Q2 2016.
A separate 2017 Cylance Threat Report reveals that overall ransomware attacks grew threefold during 2017 as compared to 2016. Healthcare continued to be the top vertical target for ransomware attacks and its share of attacks doubled from 2016 to 2017.
The bottom line is that ransomware is on the top of mind for healthcare executives.
Ransomware costs include the recovery cost (including ransom amount, if paid) + the total cost of downtime (which is really the major cost and concern for healthcare environments).
Downtime cannot be an option for hospitals. So how do you fight ransomware?
A report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlines best practices that hospitals can use to protect patient data. A fact sheet, “Ransomware and HIPAA,” is also available.
FlexPod can mitigate and prevent ransomware attacks.
FlexPod® is a proven converged infrastructure jointly developed by Cisco and NetApp. With a strong ecosystem of technical and channel partners and a robust portfolio of solution offerings, FlexPod is already a trusted infrastructure deployed by several healthcare providers. See my earlier blog for information about how FlexPod is simplifying healthcare IT. Bruno Messina’s blog explains FlexPod capabilities and our expanded healthcare solutions that include MEDITECH EHR software. FlexPod far exceeds the requirements for mission-critical applications such as Epic EHR, as demonstrated by recent performance tests that we conducted.
A recent FlexPod technical report (TR 4802) explains how you can prevent, monitor, and recover from ransomware attacks. FlexPod customers can safeguard themselves from malware attacks by leveraging existing technologies across the storage, network, and compute layers of the FlexPod architecture. This technical report describes how WannaCry malware was used to demonstrate the ransomware attack and NetApp® ONTAP® storage features such as FPolicy®, Snapshot™, and SnapCenter® helped to detect and remediate malware.
For more information about FlexPod and healthcare solutions:
Ketan Mota
Ketan is a solutions product manager at NetApp managing a broad portfolio of FlexPod converged infrastructure solutions in partnership with Cisco. His focus areas include Enterprise Databases, AI/ML, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Healthcare offerings. He has been in the Hi-Tech industry for 20+ years focusing on the cloud, storage and security technology domains. His diverse professional career includes Software Engineering, Professional Services and Product Management experience.
