Faced with the rise in cybercrime, how can we best secure our data?
Every two weeks or so, a French hospital falls victim to a cyberattack. The encryption or data extraction resulting from the intrusion can cripple an information system for several days, even several weeks, and frequently several months. Furthermore, these attacks can generate considerable costs for the affected institutions, potentially reaching several million euros to restore their information systems to a sound state. To address this, some hosting providers, such as Mipih, offer to implement offsite backups using object storage technology to better manage and protect data.
When backups are no longer enough to protect against attacks
While protecting data has become standard practice in the healthcare sector, “simply backing it up is no longer sufficient,” emphasizes David Héliot, Deputy Director of Healthcare Data Hosting at Mipih. “Unfortunately, when hospitals are subjected to cryptolockers or fall victim to malware, even backups become a target.” “For peace of mind, you need to be able to change the type of storage medium and outsource it,” he advises.
Standardizing backups to better outsource them
Faced with this reality, Mipih uses object storage to allow its members to safeguard their data. This universal, standardized protocol, compatible with the main backup solutions on the market, allows hospitals to easily scale up and outsource their backups. Thanks to this method, “a hospital that already has its backup program in place can easily, by activating an additional function on its initial tool, have another copy with a certified HDS (Health Data Hosting) and sovereign hosting provider,” explains David Héliot. This strategy is not only necessary to mitigate the risk of attacks, but also to address events or technical risks that can impact a facility (fires, floods, damage, natural disasters, etc.). In addition to guaranteeing rapid access to information, this protocol allows for “the handling of very large volumes such as petabytes,” emphasizes David Héliot. Furthermore, “once the data has been deposited, it can no longer be modified; it becomes immutable,” he explains.
Where to back up your data?
Backing up your information system in multiple versions inevitably raises the question of where to store it. As a public interest group, this hosting provider has chosen to be a sovereign cloud and owns its own data centers: two in Amiens and Toulouse, both HDS-certified. This solution therefore guarantees that its members’ data is hosted, preserved, and secured in a sovereign manner.
Outsourcing Your Information System for Better Protection
Beyond simply hosting data, David Héliot emphasizes the importance for hospitals to consider “outsourcing their entire information system to a certified HDS (Health Data Hosting) and sovereign hosting provider.” This solution effectively provides a business continuity plan. Hardware constraints are reduced for the healthcare facility, which will rely on a new virtualized infrastructure hosted by the provider. The GHT’s (Groupement Hospitalier de Territoire - Territorial Hospital Group) IT team can then dedicate more time to projects with more direct benefits for patients, while significantly increasing security levels.
As a public player in digital health, a software publisher, and the leading French HDS-certified hosting provider, Mipih supports healthcare facilities, GHTs, social care providers, and independent physicians in their digital transformation to meet their digital challenges. With four branches in Toulouse, Amiens, Bordeaux, and Reims, and offices at PariSanté Campus, Mipih and its 900 employees share their knowledge and expertise with over 700 member and client institutions to build the healthcare system of tomorrow together: efficient, ethical, responsible, and sovereign.
[pdf-embedder url=“https://www.sih-solutions.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/013SIHMAGv06p81.pdf” title=“FACING THE RISE OF CYBERCRIME, HOW CAN WE PROPERLY SECURE OUR DATA?”]