Healthcare Industry to Conduct Cyberattack Drill

January 20, 2014

The health sector, in partnership with the federal government, will conduct simulated attacks against health care networksto test their vulnerability to hackers.

According to Nextgov, it will be the first time insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the Health and Human Services Department will run a fire drill in concert. Health care has been named one of 17 critical infrastructure sectors that, if disrupted by a cyberattack, could have far-reaching consequences for the nation.

HHS Chief Information Security Officer Kevin Charest said in a statement, “Our goal for the exercises is to identify additional ways that we can help the industry be better prepared for and better able to respond to cyberattacks. This exercise will generate valuable information we can use to improve our joint preparedness.”

The Health Information Trust Alliance, a medical information technology advocacy group, will coordinate the event.

The aim of this spring’s simulated hacking exercise, dubbed CyberRX, is to discover weaknesses in preparedness and spot areas where information sharing could be improved, said Nextgov.

Participants will include Children's Medical Center Dallas, CVS Caremark and Express Scripts, as well as numerous insurance providers including Health Care Service Corp., Humana, UnitedHealth Group, and WellPoint, said Nextgov.

A second experiment is planned for this summer.

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