Following the news from the American Hospital Association of the threats linked to healthcare amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict;

James Spencer, Data Scientist at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian forces is one of the most tragic and shocking stories of 2022 so far. Having just emerged from a pandemic, we might be tempted to apply the same old strategies which include ‘waiting’ and then ‘sending the required help’ wherever one can. However, in a new age of technological warfare, this may not be enough.

“The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned the US hospitals that even though the war may be raging in distant Ukraine, danger is anything but remote. In the 21^st century, warfare has moved beyond guns, bombs, and propaganda. Hence, arsenals of war now include malware, spyware, and all manner of informational weapons that can hurt if unchecked.

“As part of its all-out offensive, Russia is also reportedly sending a new breed of malware and cyberattacks against Ukraine. Two new weapons of note are WhisperGate and HermeticWiper, both of which modify the computers they infect, rendering them inoperable. WhisperGate has the added nasty trick of posing as ransomware. Even after the victim pays the supposed ransom, they find that their computer’s information was destroyed all the same.

“Does this really matter to us though? We are safe, right? Absolutely not. It seems that Russia is just deploying every weapon at its disposal in the Ukraine war effort. In our highly interconnected world, it is very possible some malware could find its way across borders and into our incredibly vulnerable hospitals space.

“The WannaCry virus is still fresh in our minds from the havoc it wreaked on the US healthcare network. However, that was done by a rogue group of cyber criminals. Hence, it becomes scarier now to imagine the level of damage a professional army could do.”