Israeli medical institutions have been weathering a cyber-onslaught over the past few months, a report by Israeli IT security giant Check Point revealed Tuesday.
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Check Point's data shows that over the past two months, cyberattacks on medical institutions, including hospitals, HMOs, clinics, and treatment centers, have spiked.
Overall cyberattacks on medical institutions around the world have jumped by 45% - from 430 weekly attacks on average - to 620, making the healthcare sector the most targeted sector in the world at this time.
Hackers going after medical institutions know no geographic bound, as the data shows a 145% increase in cyberattacks on the healthcare sector in Central Europe, followed by East Asia (+137%), South America (+112%), and a 37% increase in such attacks in North America.
Israel has seen a 25% increase in cyberattacks on its medical institutions, going from an average of 652 weekly attack in the period prior to November 2020, to 813 weekly cyberattacks in the last two months of the year.
"Given the global pandemic, the burden on hospitals and even the vaccination campaigns taking place in various medical institutions, it is understandable why this sector particularly has been under attack," Check Point's report said.
"We see medical institutions in different parts of the world that would rather pay ransom [to hackers] instead of having their data leaked or encrypted. This success, however, only motivates hackers to mount more attacks."
The report was referring to ransomware attacks, in which hackers use malware to encrypt their victim's database and threaten to leak it or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid to decrypt it.
"The spike in cyberattacks in medical institutions is especially clear at this time, most likely because hackers see them as easy targets for a relatively quick payout," Omer Dembinsky, head of Data Research at Check Point, told Israel Hayom. "Hackers assume medical institutions are overrun by the pandemic and that they would do anything to avoid an interruption to their operational routine."
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