On March 19, 2020 the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) issued an alert that the COVID-19 pandemic presents an elevated level of risk to the cyber security of Canadian health organizations involved in the national response to the pandemic. The Cyber Centre recommends that these organizations remain vigilant and take the time to ensure that they are engaged in cyber defense best practices, including increased monitoring of network logs, reminding employees to practice phishing awareness and ensuring that servers and critical systems are patched for all known security vulnerabilities.
The alert provides details about the motivations of sophisticated threat actors, ransomware, critical vulnerabilities and recommendations for mitigation of cyberthreats. Health organizations and vendors providing cloud and information management services to health organizations should review and respond to this alert.
Organizations requiring assistance to respond to the COVID-19 cybersecurity threat can contact Privacy Horizon.
https://www.cyber.gc.ca/en/alerts/cyber-threats-canadian-health-organizations