The UK government has unveiled a new strategy aimed at making the health and social care sector more cyber resilient by 2030, claiming it is key to building a sustainable and patient-centred NHS. increase.
Our goal is to help organizations across industries improve cyber risk management, data protection, incident response and recovery, increase their digital confidence, and enable them to apply new technologies with confidence.
While details aren’t ready until the summer, the government shared five pillars of its new strategy designed to minimize cyber risks and improve incident response.
- Identify where disruptions will hurt patients the most, such as interruptions to critical services
- Bringing sectors together to leverage scale, leverage national resources and expertise, and accelerate response
- Engage leaders, ensure employees understand cyber fundamentals, and hire more security specialists.
- Building security into new technologies to better protect against cyberthreats
- Minimize incident impact and recovery time by supporting any healthcare organization
The plan is supported by the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) Cybersecurity Assessment Framework (CAF). Protect from attacks. Detect security events. Minimize the impact of incidents.
The government cited phishing, automated vulnerability scanning and fraud as one of the biggest threats to the sector, but added ransomware as the biggest risk to the NHS and its suppliers.
For more information on the NHS ransomware threat, see Recovery from NHS ransomware attacks can take up to a month.
The NHS is the world’s oldest public health system and one of the largest employers with over 1.3 million staff.
Among the cyber-related challenges highlighted by governments are the high 24/7 operational demands, exacerbated by the pressure on health services due to COVID and the ensuing backlog. He also noted the size and diversity of the sector, supply chain risks, legacy technologies, limited cyber workforce and unclear lines of accountability.
The government said it will outline activities and define indicators to build and measure the sector’s resilience over the next two to three years.
