Hospitals Fall Prey To VPN Cyberattacks During CO.VID-19 Outbreak

Currently, about four among five Americans are under the government’s mandatory lockdowns, making a lot of them to work from home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The technology used by these people to access the work are VPNs (virtual private networks). But now, according to Microsoft, these people and companies which allow working from home, especially workers in the healthcare industry, should pay attention to the threats from the VPNs.

Microsoft considered what it said is the first step ever to give signals to the hospital about the possibility of cyberattacks. In a statement, Microsoft said that ransomware operators have pointed out network devices like VPN and gateway as the targets for vulnerability.

These devices are harder to address as they are more challenging for defenders to figure out where the hackers have established the attacks.

Microsoft published this warning as more and more companies worldwide are dependent on VPN to allow their employees to work from home and access confidential work documents. It is getting even more serious when some companies do not prepare for cybersecurity as hackers can attack at any time by using VPN technology.

Microsoft, of course, has a reason behind it.

Lately in last February, when the world was acting against the spread of the coronavirus outbreak, the well-known hotel chain Marriott investigated unexpected access of guest information such as names, phone numbers, emails, birthdays, and more. The hotel chain has not claimed the details of the unexpected access, or whether it involved the VPN software. However, this shows that hackers are still working on their illegal activities even during this time.

In response to the warning, Microsoft also suggested some recommendations for employees who work from home to protect themselves as well as the company’s confidential information.

One of the advice is to keep updating the security features, which is the thing that people frequently ignore and is also the reason for hacking cases. Companies are also advised to limit employees’ access to their documents, only selected people can have access to the data.