Web Secret 522: Cybersecurity - part 4

This is part 4 of a 5 part series on cybersecurity.

What can mental health providers and institutions do to protect themselves from a cyber attack?

Even a one person private practice or a smaller company can implement cyber safeguards.

1. Become knowledgeable about technology. Mental health clinicians are notoriously tech adverse. However, unless you are living and working off the grid, ignorance is no longer acceptable.
2. Educate yourself and your employees about the threat of cyber-attacks and ransomware. Education needs to be an ongoing process.
3. Use two factor authentication and encrypted email for sensitive information. Hushmail is a secure email utility. 
4. Make sure your website is HTTPS (HTTP Secure), e.g. https://www.mycompany.com. In HTTPS, your website is encrypted by a layer of security and thus is less vulnerable. 
5. At the Forum, we were told that 95% of malware can be addressed by anti-virus software. So deploy anti-virus and update as needed. 
6. When Apple or one of the major tech companies you use (e.g. Microsoft) sends you an update patch, download it.
7. Use complex passwords.
8. Over and over the experts at Yale talked about the need for “good cyber hygiene.” Establish standards for cyber literacy, and other necessary protocols.
9. Have a workplace social media policy.

If you aren’t sophisticated about things computer, hire an expert.

As we said good-bye, one attendee said, “and now I go back in my car and drive away while using Waze to find my route and Spotify for entertainment, giving up my privacy and leaving myself wide open to hacking.”