Hacktivist groups have targeted healthcare organizations this year with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS ) attacks, resulting in outages lasting from hours to days. Over 90 known KillNet DDoS attacks were recorded against healthcare organizations in January 2023. Targets included pharmaceutical companies, health services, and health insurance providers, and more than half of the attacks targeted hospitals with level 1 trauma centers. These organizations were targeted for their vast amounts of patient data as well as to harm critical infrastructure. Outages in hospitals can delay care and have severe negative consequences on patient outcomes.

While the vast majority of healthcare breaches are financially motivated, targeting personal or medical data that can be sold on the dark web, KillNet appears to be a politically motivated, pro-Russia group. However, they also claimed to have stolen millions of credit card details, which is usually for financial gain either through fraudulent use or resale.

Healthcare hits: The challenge of securing against data theft without hindering access

The personal data exfiltrated during these DDoS attacks can fuel future social engineering attacks. It provides background information to craft a believable attack, allowing attackers to gain access to systems or steal even more personal data. Social engineering, phishing, and DDoS are top attacks used by cyber threat actors against healthcare.

Steps taken to secure systems and data against attackers can sometimes burden legitimate users, making it harder to access their own data or perform their jobs. Healthcare organizations need effective security that doesn’t add friction for patients and staff.

F5 and Intel elevate healthcare security: Fast, effective protection against DDoS

F5® Distributed Cloud Services protect against DDoS attacks that can take your critical systems offline while also protecting sensitive data without adding friction. These SaaS-based solutions offer easy deployment and centralized management to aid strained IT resources. Using F5 solutions with Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT) can make them even faster. Intel QAT accelerates data encryption and compression by offloading compute-intensive workloads to free up capacity.

F5® Distributed Cloud DDoS Mitigation stops attacks before they reach your network infrastructure and applications to maintain vital system uptime. It reduces the risk of outages that can impact patient care with a solution designed to handle the largest and most complex DDoS attacks by defending both the network and application layers. Mitigating attacks at the network edge can also reduce the strain on infrastructure resources, lowering costs and increasing performance.

Secure sensitive healthcare data against unauthorized access with F5® Distributed Cloud WAF. Consistently protect your applications in any environment with unified operations via the F5® Distributed Cloud Console. By combining signature and behavioral protection with a variety of AI and ML techniques, Distributed Cloud WAF can easily identify potentially bad actors and take action automatically.

Further protect your EHR system from downtime via threats or misconfigurations with F5. Pre-built, validated policies and templates for Epic Systems also make it easier to deploy and defend your healthcare data and operations.

F5 Distributed Cloud Services and Intel QAT Shield Against DDoS and Fraud

F5 is deployed in top U.S. hospitals, mitigates one billion automated attacks per day, and protects 150 million legitimate logins daily. Together, F5 and Intel protect your vital systems with fast and effective security.

Discover how F5 Distributed Cloud Services, in collaboration with Intel, can fortify your healthcare systems against DDoS attacks—visit www.f5.com/partners/technology-alliances/intel to enhance your defenses now.

Sources

• U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services, HC3 Analyst Note: KillNet’s Targeting of the Health and Public Health Sector , April 2023
• Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2023 , June 2023
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Types of Cyber Threat Actors That Threaten Healthcare , June 2023