Cyber security awareness
Helping healthcare organisations to develop awareness of cyber risks and security behaviours
Cyber security awareness for healthcare organisations
As the frequency and impact of cyber attacks continue to rise across the globe, a level of preparedness is needed for healthcare organisations to protect themselves and the information in their care.
This level of preparedness is also known as ‘cyber resilience’. Cyber resilience describes the ability of a healthcare organisation to resume normal operations should a cyber attack happen.
Everyone working in and for a healthcare organisation plays an important role in maintaining the privacy of people’s information. This means making sure all staff and contract employees are cyber aware and secure in their online behaviours, both at work and at home.
We’ve developed a range of resources to support healthcare providers build cyber awareness and drive positive cyber behaviours in their organisation.
Cyber Champions Network
The Cyber Champions Network is a new program the Agency has committed to delivering. It aims to build cyber resilient healthcare businesses and support a digitally ready healthcare workforce.
The Cyber Champion Network is a community of likeminded people from healthcare organisations across Australia who are committed to leading and driving positive cyber security culture and behaviours within their organisations. Find out more or submit an expression of interest on our Cyber Champions Network page.
Cyber security eLearning courses
In consultation with representatives from a range of healthcare settings and disciplines, including medicine, nursing, pharmacy, practice management and allied health, the Australian Digital Health Agency, has developed free cyber security eLearning courses.
We currently offer three free courses for you and your staff/colleagues to help improve cyber security awareness and behaviours in your organisation.
The Digital Health Security Awareness eLearning course includes five modules and includes examples that relate cyber security concepts to people’s work in healthcare organisations.
Using online conferencing and telehealth technologies securely is a short eLearning module that outlines how to protect the confidentiality of people's health information during telehealth consultations.
Cyber security considerations when working remotely or working from home is another short eLearning module that gives steps on how people can protect themselves from cyber threats when working offsite from an official workplace location.
If there other cyber training modules you think could be useful to your healthcare organisation, please let us know. Use the Australian Digital Health Agency contact form to provide feedback to our team.
Tailored group learning and webinars
The Agency has the capability to deliver tailored cyber security awareness webinars for your healthcare organisation. Contact our team to request tailored group training.
Podcasts
We also release a range of podcasts exploring the different perspectives of digital transformation from a clinical and technical point of view. You’ll find several that focus on cyber security, including:
Cyber security alerts service
Every day, Australian healthcare organisations face a wide range of targeted and opportunistic cyber threats from a variety of threat actors – both individuals and groups seeking to cause intentional harm.
The Agency’s cyber security team monitors threats to our national health infrastructure, such as the My Health Record system as well as threats to Australian healthcare entities and the broader Australian health sector.
Being informed about cyber security threats will help protect your organisation’s people, information and systems to avoid harmful security breaches while enabling and prioritising mitigation actions should an attack occur.
Ransomware and phishing attacks are two cyber security threats that the Agency has assessed as high-risk for the Australian health sector.
Subscribe to the Digital Health Cyber Security Alerts to receive timely information about threats to digital health software and cyber attack campaigns relevant to the healthcare sector.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre also has a free service for Australian internet users providing information on recent online threats and how they can be managed. Sign up for alerts through their website.
Other cyber awareness information and resources
For guidance and tips on protecting healthcare information when you are using digital health tools as a healthcare consumer, visit our cyber security for everyone page.