Protecting patient records (PHI) and keeping your operatories running requires constant vigilance. This October, we encourage practice managers and doctors to review these four critical cybersecurity pillars with their teams:
Continuous Staff Security Awareness Training: Over 80% of healthcare network breaches start with a single-clicked link. Phishing emails targeting dental offices now fake insurance claims, patient record requests, and vendor invoices. Ensure all new and existing staff complete regular security training and report suspicious emails to our support team immediately.
Mandatory Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Password protection alone is no longer enough. MFA must be enforced across all practice email accounts, cloud practice management portals, and remote access connections to stop stolen credentials from turning into a practice-wide breach.
Immutable, Offsite Backup Verification: Ransomware specifically targets local backups to prevent quick recovery. Make sure your team maintains isolated, encrypted offsite backups that cannot be modified or deleted by network attacks, ensuring your Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental database can be restored swiftly if disaster strikes.
Business-Grade Network Segmentation & Patching: Smart dental equipment, guest Wi-Fi networks, and other non-production workstations should never sit on the same network segment as your practice management and imaging data servers. Keeping these environments separated and enforcing routine system patches prevents threats from spreading laterally across your network.
