Last decade saw unprecedented growth in the biotech industry and other life sciences sectors. The latest gene therapy for cancer, the ability to generate one’s organs for transplant using pluripotent cells or advancements in creating bionic prosthetics, all of these are some of the many achievements made in this field. With this astounding growth comes a significant concern and that is cyber attacks. The sources suggest the biotechnology firms are among the most targetted by the hackers and phishing sites.
The motivation behind targeting such firms is money whether directly or indirectly. These firms store critically essential data, and information about the drugs, health records of patients, clinical trial data, etc. this information has very high trading value in the black market. In addition, companies target their rivals to fulfill their ulterior motives but leave patients at a loss.
- Consequences of cyber attacks
Biotechnology companies often conduct clinical trials of their drugs for which they collect highly sensitive patient data especially their DNA information. Organized criminal groups may use this data bank for illegal purposes like identity theft if they get their hands on it. The stolen information can be misused to create bioweapons and such other deadly alternatives.
Safety of data is particularly necessary for a firm at the research and development stage especially before the company gets patent for a new drug or therapy. Loss of information at this stage may result in to let go off economically scalable information.
Ransomware is the latest among the cyber attacks, which created chaos in the past few years. The virus not only disrupts the software and infects data; it locks down the system or encrypts your files and demands hefty amount as ransom to regain access to your computer. One such ransomware attack in recent times is WannaCry that twisted arms of many strong organizations.
- Ways to prevent these attacks
Role of regulators is crucial in protecting against these attacks. From time to time, there have been regulations by governments and relevant organizations to keep the security threats at bay.
- The employees are the first victims of these attacks and provide the gateway in the organization to the hackers. Educate them about cyber attacks are, what they can cost and how to mitigate them.
- Strong inward and outward firewalls should be in place to save the system.
- Authentication for secure login should be more complicated than a mere password like biometric authentication at all levels.
- The IT team of the company to have the business continuity should create a sound backup solution.
Billy Mark is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2002. As a technical expert, Billy has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as office.com/setup.
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