CISO Brief: October 2025 Cybersecurity Threat Recap & Insight
October delivered two wake-up calls for healthcare cybersecurity leaders: a critical WSUS remote-code execution flaw that exposed update-chain integrity and a major AWS US-EAST-1 outage that disrupted global services for hours. Together, they underscored a single truth—even trusted infrastructure and cloud providers can become a single point of failure. This month’s CISO Brief for October […]
How to Make Third-Party Risk Manageable
A new Fortified webinar, “Make Third-Party Risk Manageable,” will help you take steps to protect your organization from the security threats posed by vendors. This informative webinar is hosted by Melissa Adams, Fortified’s Director of Third-Party Risk Management, and Jared Michaels, Principal Solutions Architect. Some of the largest healthcare breaches in recent years have involved […]
Lessons from the Front Lines: The Perspective of a Cyberattack from the Nursing Floor
A longtime nurse has seen the impact of cyberattacks up close and personal. Don Neal is a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) with nearly 50 years of healthcare experience. As a self-described “old-timer,” he experienced the shift to healthcare technology firsthand, from using electronic charting to switching to automated blood pressure machines. While he says […]
Lessons From the Front Lines: How One Hospital Survived 30 Days Offline
For healthcare leaders, there’s no good time for a cyberattack, but they’re especially aggravating when they hit while you’re on vacation. That’s what happened to Katrina Brown, chief nursing officer of Providence Hospital in Mobile, Alabama, when the EMR system and other software went down while she was in Hawaii. The Response Strategy: Taking Quick […]
Lessons from the Front Lines: Learning from the SolarWinds Attack
Two security engineers take us into the trenches—and talk about what happened afterward. James Edgell and Dan Colon work in IT security for Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, MA. Normally they spend their days scanning systems, working on cybersecurity awareness newsletters, coordinating with Fortified on business impact analyses, and other routine tasks. However, it wasn’t […]
5 Ways to Strengthen the Cyber Conversation with CFOs
Cybersecurity isn’t just a technical conversation anymore; it’s a financial one. In healthcare, the cost of cyber risk is measured not only in terms of breached records or downtime, but also in canceled procedures, delayed reimbursements, and long-term reputational damage. When patient safety and solvency are both at stake, CISOs and CFOs must operate as […]
Lessons from the Frontlines: Navigating a Cybersecurity Crisis During Healthcare Integration
A healthcare CISO faced an unusual situation in an already challenging time. Louis Wright, CISO and Director of IT Security for USA Health in Mobile, Alabama, oversees cybersecurity for a healthcare network that includes major hospitals and more than 70 clinics spread across Mississippi and Alabama, including some that were part of the recently acquired […]
CISO Brief: Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2025
Since the start of 2025, the healthcare sector has continued to experience cyber incidents that have disrupted patient care, exposed millions of records, and reshaped organizational thinking about resilience. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is not just about reminding people of risks; it’s about translating real-world events into actionable lessons. Below is a look back at the […]
Why Unstructured Data Is a Hidden Risk
When most people think about sensitive data, they picture electronic health records (EHRs), financial databases, or other structured systems. Those are important, but they’re not the whole story. The bigger risk for many organizations — especially in healthcare — sits in unstructured data. Think files, folders, spreadsheets, shared drives, emails, SharePoint, Teams, and cloud storage. […]
CISO Brief: August 2025 Cybersecurity Threat Recap & Fall Outlook
August 2025 underscored a reality for healthcare cybersecurity leaders: AI is an asset and an attack surface. This past month, we witnessed some notable AI realities, including early warning signs of “AI fatigue” as enterprises struggle to realize the promised efficiencies. This month’s themes highlight two sides of the same coin: adversaries weaponizing AI to […]