NHS announces initiative to combat healthcare cyber threats

The UK's National Health Service has announced a proactive initiative to work directly with technology suppliers to bolster cybersecurity resilience.

The UK's National Health Service has announced a proactive initiative to work directly with technology suppliers to bolster cybersecurity resilience across the healthcare and social care system, responding to an "endemic" of ransomware attacks, according to Infosecurity Magazine.

In an open letter, National CISO Phil Huggins and NHS England's Mike Fell stated that while a voluntary supply chain charter provided a foundation, the "scale and endurance of the threat" now requires more direct engagement to safeguard essential services.

The program, reinforced by the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, will involve NHS England contacting suppliers to discuss key security controls and supply chain risks to patient care, emphasizing that the process is a collaborative risk identification and remediation effort, not an audit.

Concurrently, the NHS has outlined critical actions for healthcare bodies, including maintaining system patches, achieving 'Standards Met' in the Data Security and Protection Toolkit, enforcing multi-factor authentication, deploying effective monitoring, securing immutable backups, and conducting board-level exercises.

Written by

Sharon Florentine Editorial Director

Sharon Florentine is the editorial director for CyberRisk Alliance’s Channel Brands and acting editorial director for SC UK. She is responsible for setting strategy and editorial direction and developing content for news, features, analysis and other written content, moderates live webcasts, and oversees research projects. Sharon has previously held key editorial, content and leadership positions at DevOps.com, Security Boulevard, CIO.com, Ziff Davis Enterprise, and CRN, among others.