When a rural hospital suffers a cyberattack that may knock it offline or encrypt all of its systems and patient records, the human cost can be enormous. Sadly, it is not unusual for criminal groups to attack hospitals, believing that they will have no choice but to pay extortion demands.
In a statement issued Monday addressing the cybersecurity of hospitals, the White House also specifically addressed rural hospitals:
Healthcare-related cyber disruptions can be particularly disruptive to rural hospitals, which serve over 60 million Americans. Most rural hospitals are critical access hospitals, meaning they are located more than 35 miles from another hospital, which makes diversions of patients and staffing-intensive manual workarounds in response to attacks more difficult. Recognizing the critical role these hospitals play in the communities they serve, the White House worked with and received commitments from leading U.S. technology providers to provide free and low-cost resources for all 1,800-2,100 rural hospitals across the nation.
As part of this initiative to improve security and resilience of our rural hospital system, our private sector partners have committed to the following:
- For independent Critical Access Hospitals and Rural Emergency Hospitals, Microsoft is extending its nonprofit program to provide grants and up to a 75% discount on security products optimized for smaller organizations. For participating larger rural hospitals already using eligible Microsoft solutions, Microsoft is providing its most advanced security suite at no additional cost for one year. Microsoft will also provide free cybersecurity assessments by qualified technology security providers and free training for frontline and IT staff at eligible rural hospitals throughout the country to deepen our resiliency to malicious cyberattacks. Additionally, Microsoft will extend security updates for Window 10 to participating hospitals for one year at no cost.
- Google will provide endpoint security advice to rural hospitals and non-profit organizations at no cost and a pool of funding to support software migration. In addition, Google is committing to launch a pilot program with rural hospitals to develop a packaging of security capabilities that fit these hospitals’ unique needs.
The program sounds well-intended, but will hospitals avail themselves of it? When something similar was offered to k-12 school districts in Texas, not all districts availed themselves of the lower-cost services and resources.
If entities don’t invest in more IT and security personnel, then just offering advice or discounts is unlikely to be as effective as it might be. Do rural hospitals have enough personnel to take advantage of these offers? If not, what next?
