How the Healthcare Industry Is Working to Become Immune to Ransomware

The first known ransomware attack occurred in 1989 and was targeted at the healthcare industry. The attention and attractiveness of healthcare organizations to ransomware hackers have not waned in the decades since. In fact, attacks are growing by 70-100 percent year over year. In 2023, there were over 460 ransomware attacks impacting U.S. health organizations, making it the most targeted industry.

This year, a major attack delayed prescription fillings and led to cash flow issues at facilities across the country. The American Healthcare Association said that 94% of hospitals have reported financial impact from the incident, with some losing upward of $1 billion per day in revenues. Continue reading

Planning Toward FY 2022 – A Peek at the Federal Budget

The Biden Administration recently issued its request for 2022 spending. This practice is really more of a policy effort than actual budgeting, but serves to illustrate administration priorities to inform agencies as to what is likely to get approved in the final budget. The 2022 budget request has a number of IT-specific priorities, starting with the funding of the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) at another $500 million for fiscal 2022. This would be in addition to the $1 billion that was invested as part of the American Rescue Plan Act--money that helped support the ongoing effort to digitize government services and operations.

The $58.4 billion in IT spending includes marked increases in the IT budgets of the Treasury Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. NASA and the Department of Commerce had small reductions to its IT budgets.

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Fed Forum 2013 Videos and Briefings Posted

Originally posted by Bob Gourley on CTOvision

One of the challenges in very popular events like the FedForum is the breakout sessions are all worth attending but you can't be in more than one place at the same time. Fortunately much of the content from these sessions has been captured. You can see video and download slides from all the sessions.

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