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What’s happening here is people are guessing passwords, their penetrating well-known protocols. So how do you guard against these kinds of attacks? The reality is that you can structure the work and the way employees access data by using clean standardized cloud-based systems rather than logging into a desktop. The RDP attack is when an employee remotely logs into their computer at home. This is a frequent and known weakness in Microsoft’s desktop access system.
Microsoft works hard to keep it updated but it’s been a vulnerability for a long time. They also suggest here two-factor authentication which I think is an absolute must. In our case, we use the physical encryption keys that are currently the highest standard of a two-factor authentication.
One thing that I’ve been calling for is for healthcare software vendors to implement two-factor authentication across all of their products. Many of the EMRs and other kinds of systems that we work with actually do not have two factor authentication. While others use more simple SMS to factor authentication which has a lot of weakness to it. If we get enough health care providers to clamor for 2FA in these products everyone will be safer.
Don Wicklegren is Xilium's founder. He is a technologist by profession who started his career pre-internet in remote medical technology and learning. He has worked in both small and large corporations with world-wide remote staff and became a part of the team who developed the first commercial internet. As an entrepreneur, he started his first technology company in 2001. In Xilium, he focuses on innovating solutions for the US healthcare system.
