{ business solutions } by Missouri Dental Insurance Services


Have you done a Cybersecurity assessment of your practice? A critical task with cyber events increasingly occuring


by LINDSEY KUTSCHER C


yber events are on the rise at a sig- nificant rate, but have you done a cybersecurity assessment of your practice? As a practice owner,


your patient files are imperative to your day- to-day workflow. What would happen if your access to those files was locked, a laptop was stolen, or your phone (with patient record access) was stolen? Have you considered the liability that falls on you if a potential breach of private patient information were to occur? Let’s discuss a few items on how you can protect your practice from cyberattacks.


CREATE A CYBERSECURITY PLAN


A cybersecurity plan should include an employee training program as well as an in- cident response plan. One of the best things you can do is make sure that employees understand your practice’s security policies and procedures. Don’t consider training to be a one-and-done deal. A strong train- ing program should offer regular courses or other interaction to help keep security at the forefront of your employee’s mind. Make sure your office (as a whole) understands the importance of updating software and is aware of what should be done if a possible security breach is identified. This brings us to the second part of creating a cybersecurity plan. An incident response plan should be developed providing information such as who to contact, where data and data backups are stored and when to contact law enforce- ment (or your patients) about the breach.


EDUCATE YOURSELF (AND YOUR STAFF)


Did you know the Small Business Admin- istration (SBA) offers resources to help you


18 focus | SUMMER 2024 | ISSUE 2


strengthen your cybersecurity? Some of those include creating a cybersecurity plan, con- ducting a cyber resilience review, conducting vulnerability scans, training and some free cybersecurity services and tools to help you. Visit sba.gov for more information. Or, talk with your IT company, as they may offer training as part of their services that you can utilize in your practice with your team.


EMAIL SECURITY


Be cautious when using email. Do not open suspicious attachments or click on links you are unsure about. Verify the sender of an email. If you are unsure of the validity, phone the sender to verify their intention behind the email.


PASSWORDS


Allow your employees to create longer, unique passwords that are easy for them to


remember. It is typically recommended that passwords be at least eight characters long, have one upper case letter, a number and a symbol. However, pass phrases are also useful. A passphrase is a series of words or other text used to gain access to a com- puter system, program, or data. Example: ilovethemissouridentalassociation or i love the missouri dental association. As a dentist, you deal with highly sensitive data and in this case, you may want to require multifac- tor authentication which requires a user to manage at least two identifying factors. For example, a password and a code.


SECURING YOUR WI-FI


Many of us realize that Wi-Fi equipment is not secure when we buy it. Typically, it comes with a default password, but you’ll want to make sure that your network is


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32