“As the American health care and public health sectors continue responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Service’s Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) is taking a multi-pronged communications approach to securing health IT and operations across the country.”
“HC3 normally develops cyberattack mitigation resources and promotes cyber-forward partnerships across the medical and public health industry, but when COVID-19 resulted in heightened reliance on medical facilities and providers, there was also increased importance to secure IT across that sector, HC3 Director Greg Singleton said during Tuesday’s ATARC virtual event.”
“’HHS is a very large agency being faced with unprecedented cybersecurity pandemic challenges while also being asked to respond to the pandemic,’ Singleton said, adding that ‘some of the cybersecurity challenge is information management challenges and complexity management challenges and how you need tools, you need the systems and the people in place. You also need to be able to understand your environment. You need to be able to understand your posture, your perimeter, and be able to make actionable decisions.’”
“HHS, as well as large swaths of the American health care sector, had to pivot drastically amid the pandemic this past year. The cyberattack risk across the industry expanded significantly as parts of the HHS and health workforce moved to telework and as the medical industry brought in additional resources and personnel to address the COVID-19 response. That attack surface, in addition to COVID-19-related data to safeguard, has made the security of those assets a priority for HC3 and its partners across the health sector.”
“HC3 has also had to address malicious cyber activity across the COVID-19 information space online, Singleton added, making the communications and coordination about safe online activity an additional layer of work his organization has taken on…” Read the full article here.
Source: How HHS’ Cyber Threat Center Pushed Comms Strategies Amid COVID-19 – By Melissa Harris, January 15, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
