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Press Releases

Take a look at a selection of our recent media coverage:

European hospitals at risk from phishing attacks, research reveals

31st May 2023

Fewer than one in 10 European clinics and hospitals have adequate protection from phishing and spoofing, putting highly sensitive data at risk of ransomware attacks, according to new research.

Only 144 (7.2%) of the 2,000 healthcare facilities included in the research by email security provider EasyDMARC were found to have correctly implemented and configured security policies to flag, report and remove outbound phishing emails.

Some 645 (32%) of the organisations had implemented the domain-based message authentication, reporting and conformance (DMARC) standard established in 2012. This standard enables the automatic flagging and removal of receiving emails which are impersonating senders’ domains.

A total of 361 organisations (18%) had implemented DMARC but had not configured it to deal with impersonating emails, while 140 (7%) had configured it to send such emails into quarantine. As a result, these organisations lacked visibility into any phishing or impersonating emails received or blocked.

Susceptible to breaches of sensitive data

Commenting on the research, Gerasim Hovhannisyan, EasyDMARC CEO and co-founder said: ‘Impersonating email domains is one of the most effective ways cybercriminals bypass organisational cyber defences through phishing, spoofing, and ransomware attacks. Far too many organisations are overlooking a vital tool in effectively preventing this present and persistent danger.

‘With stories of ransomware attacks increasingly dominating headlines, the apparent absence of domain authentication renders these organisations susceptible to breaches of highly sensitive, valuable and potentially costly data. Without the adoption of DMARC or similarly effective policies, the sector will continue to see an increase in cyber events and subsequent disruptions and losses.’

Internationally, 54% of the top 100 global clinics and hospitals have adopted and implemented DMARC.

Beyond hospital data: follow-up on data sharing and exchange

28th April 2023

HOPE and HealthPros have been collaborating with researchers from the Amsterdam University Medical Centres at the University of Amsterdam since 2020 around the subject of data sharing and exchange.

This webinar presents the results of the project. There is special emphasis on examples of how data exchange between hospitals and other healthcare organisations changed during the Covid-19 pandemic in different member states across Europe.

Latest REACT-1 study data suggest COVID-19 rates are falling

1st December 2020

Data from the latest cross-sectional survey of COVID-19 from a random sample of people in England suggest that the prevalence of infection is decreasing.

The REal-time Assessment of Community Transmission-1 (REACT-1), which was established by a team at Imperial College, London, has been collecting monthly and random data since May 2020. The study is designed to examine time trends in the prevalence of positive, self-administered nose and throat swab tests in England. The collected data can then be used to estimate the prevalence of COVID-19 by age and in different regions of the England.

Findings
The latest data show that there were 821 positive cases from 105,123 swab tests (0.78%), giving a weighted prevalence of 0.96% This is approximately 30% lower than the figure observed during the last period (1.32%) collected between 26 October and 2 November 2020. Using these results, the team have estimated that the R value is 0.88. The information on positivity for the different regions of England show that there has been a reduction of more than 50% in the North West and North East (where levels were previously much higher) though little change in the East and West Midlands and London. Based on their findings, the authors estimate a national prevalence of 0.96%, equivalent to approximately 720,000 infections in England on any one day.

However, the study is not all good news. There appears to be an increased prevalence in those aged 5 to 17 years, i.e., school children. Additionally, the data show that there is no evidence of decline among people of Black and Asian ethnicity, with the latter group having a much higher odds of testing positive (odds ratio = 1.72) compared with White individuals. There were also increased odds of testing positive among those from the most socially deprived areas and among health and care workers.

The authors conclude by noting that while the prevalence of infection appears to be reducing, it is still high at roughly 1% of the population and that measures will be needed to suppress levels further such as widespread vaccination.

Citation
Imperial College. REACT-1 round 7 interim report: fall in prevalence of swab-positivity in England during national lockdown.

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