New European Commission Action Plan on the Cybersecurity of the European Healthcare System is Much Needed

By Chris Hutchins · December 10, 2024

With rising hybrid threats putting critical infrastructure on the frontline, the new European Commission faces considerable geostrategic and security challenges. Trellix commends President von der Leyen’s proactive approach to addressing these risks, including the first 100-days action plan on hospital and healthcare cybersecurity. As shown in our recent analysis, this initiative provides an important opportunity to protect patients’ private data and ensure seamless service availability.

Surging cyberattacks against hospitals and healthcare providers pose grave risks to patient trust, safety, and lives. Cybercriminals typically attack under-protected healthcare providers with ransomware, exploiting the critical nature of the data and services to demand quick payouts. And this means healthcare provider CISOs are under significant strain with 23% of healthcare CISOs report to the board daily, with another 37% doing so weekly, diverting important management time away from patient care.

European healthcare organisations frequently experience data breaches and service disruptions, with over half attributing these incidents to system vulnerabilities. In 2021, the Conti ransomware group infiltrated the Irish healthcare system, impacting 4,000 locations and 54 hospitals, impeding access to electronic health records, delaying treatment for thousands, increasing waiting lists, and costing over €80 million. Full recovery took months, during which hackers persistently threatened to publish sensitive medical data.

This cyberattack reveals the cascading effects of cybersecurity lapses. Its lack of sophistication shows that it could have been much worse.

As a healthcare CISO, you’re tasked with not only defending against a barrage of cyber threats but a threat landscape in constant flux. Hence its vital health care providers strengthen their incident response capabilities.  With state-sponsored attacks on the rise, its crucial incentives are put in place to regularly update incident response protocols and ensure your team is well-prepared for targeted, complex attacks. Simulation exercises and continuous monitoring are also essential tools for staying ahead of the adversary.

Improving cyber hygiene in critical sectors such as healthcare also requires a multi-vendor approach that reduces digital dependencies and mitigates the risk of widespread failures from isolated breaches. Overreliance on a single or limited pool of cyber security providers creates single points of failure that provide concentrated targets for cyber criminals, as witnessed with the CrowdStrike outage and fallout.

At Trellix, we hope the Commission will support a multi-vendor approach to enable best-of-breed solutions in its action plan on the cybersecurity of hospitals and healthcare providers. Breaches can have dire consequences – let’s now work together to strengthen the cybersecurity of the European healthcare system.