Vigilant, not vulnerable – Nina Cartwright
Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 5th January 2018
A cyber attack is no longer simply a plot line from a novel or spy movie – it’s an issue that has been brought to our own front door. A series of major breaches in cyber security has hit the headlines in the UK in recent months. According to news reports, the personal details of almost 700,000 Brits were hacked in the summer of 2017 following a cyber attack at credit monitoring firm, Equifax.[i] The highly sensitive information lost included phone and driving licence numbers.
Even closer to ‘home’ was the cyber attack that crippled the NHS last May. Hospitals and GP surgeries were among worldwide health service organisations hit by a ‘ransomware’ attack known as WannaCry. The virus often arrived via an innocent-looking email, which the recipient opened in good faith only to release malware onto their system. This meant files were locked and encrypted in such a way that they could not be accessed. During the first few days of chaos, appointments had to be cancelled, with some of the Trusts affected operating on an emergency-only basis. Staff had to use pen and paper, plus their own mobile phones, in order to cope with the meltdown.
The National Cyber Security Centre was founded by the government in 2016, to provide advice and support in how to avoid the threat of an attack. At time of writing, it had dealt with over 500 incidents, including 30 category 2 cases (category 1 is the most serious; WannaCry was judged to be category 2).[ii] It has produced a guide for small businesses to help them protect themselves from the most common cyber attacks. It covers five key areas including data backup, preventing malware damage and how to use passwords effectively.[iii]
If you still are not sure where your practice fits in, think about the vast amount of data that you hold. Most (if not all) of it is of a sensitive nature: everything a hacker would need to steal someone’s identity, plus information about medical conditions and possibly bank details. A hacker might believe that a dental practice would not have the sophisticated, rock-solid firewalls common to large businesses, and also that staff could be easily manipulated. Human error is responsible for many data breaches, as seen with the WannaCry virus. If someone has not been given a procedure to follow, or has exercised poor judgment due to a lack of knowledge, it’s easy to click on a bad link. Plus, bad links are generally becoming harder to spot, as hackers become more ingenious.
The ramifications of a cyber attack are huge. It would be a legal nightmare if you were found to have left your patients’ personal data vulnerable to unauthorised access. Depending on the scale and nature of the breach, the damage to your reputation could be immeasurable. Your system would have to be temporarily suspended while the problem is fixed, costing you time and money too.
The dental industry is become more technology rich – cutting-edge practice management software has revolutionised record keeping, marketing and efficiency – so you should embrace the risk of cyber attack as both real and relevant to what you do. It starts with an understanding of the potential threats to your practice and what steps you need to take to protect your systems and data. Practice managers and owners should ensure staff understand the importance of safeguarding information and set protocols for everyone to follow. These should include things like not having screens visible to patients and visitors, and vigilance in relation to email attachments from unfamiliar sources. Anti-virus software should be installed on every computer and kept up-to-date; the same applies to firewalls, which should be strong and secure.
Look for a solution that offers superior protection from hacking and other cyber crimes, such as CS Managed Service from Carestream Dental. With features including comprehensive virus protection, automatic updates and backups, plus top-level firewalls with intrusion detection, it is a safe and user-friendly choice. Carestream Dental itself has achieved the Cyber Essentials Certificate, confirming that it does everything it can to protect its data from possible cyber intrusion.
Practices have a duty to maintain their cyber security – it’s part and parcel of running an efficient, modern service. Prevention is the best form of defence, which means arming your staff with the knowledge and tools to help avoid a data breach. As long as you are vigilant, a greater reliance on technology does not have to mean you’re more vulnerable to an attack.
For more information please contact Carestream Dental on
0800 169 9692 or visit www.carestreamdental.co.uk
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[i] CITYA.M. Technology. Cyber Security. Jasper Jolly. Equifax ups its estimates of British victims of hack to 700,000. Tuesday 10 October 2017. http://www.cityam.com/273647/equifax-ups-its-estimates-british-victims-hack-700000 [Accessed October 2017]
[ii] Major cyber-attack will happen soon, warns UK’s security boss. The Guardian, 22 September 2017. Link: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/22/major-cyber-attack-happen-soon-warns-uks-online-security-boss (accessed October 2017)
[iii] National Cyber Security Centre. Cyber Security: Small Business Guide. Link: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/smallbusiness (accessed October 2017).
