PAGE 14 | THE CARER | SPRING 2020
Why Cyber Attacks Targeting Care Homes Have Increased During The Pandemic In early March, Quality Compliance Systems (QCS), which provides compliance management systems to over 4,000 UK care homes, received a suspicious email from the ‘IT-Services desk’. This email was addressed to “ALL STAFF” and entitled “Corona virus awareness”. At first glance, even to the trained-eye, the two paragraph email, which called on staff “to take a compulsory survey” to help combat the Coronavirus, looked genuine. But, experts at QCS, who have developed a raft of policies around cyber awareness, data protection and confidentiality, immediately identified that the correspondence was fake. Just as well because if any subscriber had clicked on the link, they would have been sent to a fake Outlook Web App. Thinking that the webpage was genuine, anyone who completed the survey, would have unwittingly given their personal details to hackers. “Unfortunately, this is just one of several ‘phishing’ scams perpetrated by criminals, wishing to capitalise on the Covid-19 pandemic”, says Becky Newman, from Howden, a specialist insurance broker for the UK care sector.
LARGE INCREASE IN CORONAVIRUS-LED CYBER FRAUD With the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau reporting 994 instances of Coronavirus-related fraud and cybercrime in the first 21 days of April*, Newman, an Associate Director for Howden Care Division, says that “phishing emails remain the most widespread security breach”, but “Impersonation and Ransomware attacks” are also on the rise. She adds, “Cyber criminals are opportunistic. They’ll target everything. There’s been a dramatic increase in Ransomware attacks because they’re quick, easy and highly disruptive. What’s more, all the proprietary information extracted is of value because it can also be sold on the Dark Web should the company not pay the ransom.” But why are cyber criminals taking aim at care providers rather than the big banks and large corporates? Newman explains, “Care providers hold vast quantities of personal and sensi-
tive information and a greater number are using technology to deliver services. Unfortunately, the majority of care providers don't have the funds to allocate adequate resources to cyber protection programmes. Nor do they have time to educate their staff on “cyber-hygiene”. This makes care businesses a relatively easy and fruitful target for attackers.” Another obstacle, thinks Newman, is the high turnover of staff in the UK care sector, which she says “makes it difficult to cement learning”. “We know from Skills for Care that staff turnover in the care sector in England is over 30.8%. That means 440,000 people leave their jobs each year**. High turnover makes it very hard to instil a cyber security culture amongst staff, especially when the nature of the threat is constantly evolving and is growing in sophistication.”
STRONG CULTURE OF COMPLIANCE NEEDED In this challenging environment, Newman believes that well-led care providers, that have embedded a strong culture of compliance within their services, are better able to protect themselves from cyberattack. She also thinks that companies such as QCS, who supply compliance management systems with integrated risk assessment technology, have a major role to play. She explains, “Cyber-related policies and procedures require risk assessments in the same way a provider assesses more tangible risks. Procedures around the handling of data - and the ongoing training of staff in cyber awareness procedure - is key. Awareness and the re-iteration of the risk are also essential. We think QCS’s extremely robust and thorough systems are a great medium for communicating cyber security updates to carers, as and when new information comes to light.” To download a cyber awareness factsheet, visit www.thecareruk.com/qcsfactsheet * Action Fraud website https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/news All figures were obtained from Action Fraud press office on 21st, April and are accurate at the time of writing. ** Skills for Care Workforce intelligence The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England, September 2019 (Page 8) https://www.skillsforcare.org.uk/adult-social-care-workforce-data/Workforceintelligence/documents/State-of-the-adult-social-care-sector/State-of-Report-2019.pdf
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