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NHS to employ 'good guy' hackers to help boost cyber defences

28/11/2017

NHS to employ 'good guy' hackers to help boost cyber defences

In a world where insufficient digital defences can see your business defamed, robbed, taken offline or even held to ransom, organisations absolutely must ensure their IT security is up to scratch. And, when it comes to cyber security, few businesses have as much to lose as healthcare providers.


Not only could poor cyber security lead to patients’ records being compromised, but it could also jeopardise their care if certain systems were impacted.


It’s no surprise then that the health service in England, the NHS, is looking to bolster its cyber defences in light of the numerous high-profile cyber-attacks that have occurred in recent time.


However, the way in which the health service plans on doing it might come as a surprise. That’s because the NHS is looking to spend £20 million setting up a security operations centre and will also employ so-called ethical hackers to help proactively identify weaknesses in its security systems.


Earlier this year, in May, one-third of UK health trusts were hit by the WannaCry worm, which demanded a ransom be paid to unlock infected PCs.


In a statement, Dan Taylor, head of the data security centre at NHS Digital, said the NHS would be covered by a “near-real-time monitoring and alerting service that covers the whole health and care system”.


The security operations centre would also help the NHS improve its “ability to anticipate future vulnerabilities while supporting health and care in remediating current known threats”, he said.

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