In today’s world, organizations face an array of crises spanning from natural disasters to financial downturns, each posing a threat to employee safety, corporate reputation, and financial stability. In response, effective crisis management demands a comprehensive communication strategy at its core.
When developing plans to manage a crisis, it is imperative that a communication strategy be incorporated.
Imagine you're the CEO of a bustling financial institution. Money never sleeps, right? But what if it did, for 30 minutes at a time? That's potentially $1,000 lost every minute due to network downtime. Ouch! But why? Your IT team is top-notch, with a dedicated war room buzzing with activity. Alerts flash, phones ring, emails ping – yet, precious minutes tick by before the real issue gets addressed. Why the delay?
Here are some strategies for state and local chief information officers (CIOs) to maximize their resources and limited funding in order to advance their resilience efforts.
Changing the Focus:
Traditionally, the prevailing notion has been that cyber perfection lies in prevention. However, in our interconnected world, "prevention" is no longer an accurate measure of resilience. The cybersecurity field constantly evolves as new threats emerge, making it imperative that we redefine resilience. Rather than solely aiming to prevent breaches and attacks, the focus should shift towards safeguarding critical information and maintaining operations in the face of inevitable attacks and breaches.
In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, healthcare providers are increasingly adopting electronic health record (EHR) technology and connecting to health information exchanges. While this enhances the accessibility of patient health information (PHI) for healthcare professionals, it also exposes PHI to online security threats and potential HIPAA data breaches.
The convenience of easy access to PHI for healthcare providers also presents a corresponding risk, as it becomes more vulnerable to hackers and unauthorized users. Effectively monitoring and managing these risks is crucial for healthcare organizations, with risk assessments playing a pivotal role in maintaining HIPAA compliance. Threats such as mobile devices and ransomware underscore the need for healthcare providers to exercise prudence in their risk analyses. Even the slightest oversight or lapse in security could result in a HIPAA data breach, leading to a protracted and costly recovery process.
“Service-friendly architecture” sounds like a great benefit for any type of IT system, but what exactly does it mean? What makes one alerting system’s build service-friendly compared to others available on the market? And why should agencies choose this type of system when selecting a new solution?
Fear not! HipLink is here to demystify the concept and outline the core characteristics of service-friendly alerting software.
As the healthcare industry adapts to the digital era, healthcare providers must recognize the importance of effective communication in building trust between patients and providers. A 2021 survey by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that of all adults aged 18 and over, 37.0% used telemedicine in the past 12 months - and forecast to rise in subsequent years. With patients' expectations evolving, it's crucial to meet their communication preferences in order to improve health outcomes and patient retention.
As the healthcare industry continues to embrace digital transformation, communication between providers and other stakeholders is more important than ever. HIPAA-compliant texting is a crucial tool that can help streamline communication and improve patient care without compromising on privacy and security. In this blog post, we'll explore the essentials of HIPAA-compliant texting in the healthcare sector and provide insights into best practices.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) helps organizations detect, investigate, respond to, and defend themselves against ransomware and other malicious network activity. The technology offers real-time insights into threats. EDR tools provide visibility into endpoint devices like computers, phones, servers, and smartwatches.
The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is a network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity, which enable these objects to collect and exchange data. IoT is reshaping government processes by improving efficiency, increasing transparency, and saving costs.
Government security generally refers to the measures and protocols implemented by a government to protect its citizens, infrastructure, and assets from various types of threats, including physical, digital, and cyber threats. Continuous monitoring and security vigilance is necessary to protect this highly sensitive data throughout generations. Government security measures can include everything from border security and intelligence gathering to cybersecurity and disaster management.
Modern businesses rely on a vast array of internal and external infrastructure systems, including energy, ventilation, and data networking systems; software systems, both in local data centers and the cloud; and machines, vehicles, and other equipment to support their operations.
All too often, businesses approach emergency response, disaster recovery, and business continuity planning in the context of the “worst-case scenario,” which usually takes the form of some natural disaster that destroys an entire facility. Although it’s a worthwhile exercise to prepare for such a scenario, that preparation may not apply to less-destructive emergency situations.
Is your company’s cyber security profile up to par?
The immediate reaction might be “of course!” But for many companies, the answer isn’t so simple.
Cyber attacks are more common than many believe. It’s estimated that 64% of companies worldwide have experienced a cyber attack, with an average of 30,000 websites hacked daily.
Critical Event Management (CEM) software is an end-to-end process that enables organizations to significantly speed up responses in emergency situations. For example, it helps hospitals and other vital organizations prepare for, respond to, and recover from events such as natural disasters, health crises, cyber attacks, and even power outages. It’s easier to ensure that everyone is safe and that the operation continues to run smoothly by staying connected and informed.
Did you know that employees cause 82% of data breaches? No, this doesn't mean that your employees are siding with hackers and leaving the door wide open to shady characters. It means that your employees might take action or make errors that create loopholes hackers exploit. That is what makes them the weakest link.
The need for a remote government workforce has become glaringly apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Widening telework options has enabled government employees to do their jobs from home, reducing the risk of transmission and protecting both federal workers and citizens from harm. Regardless of the reasoning, the number of people working remotely tripled between 2019 and 2021.
Service level agreements set the standard for deliverables and ensure that customers get what they pay for. But, what happens when the service quality doesn't quite match up to what's on paper? Most business executives agree that SLA breaches are relatively common. Companies make big promises initially, but very few of them can live up to them. Does that mean SLA breaches are inevitable, and what does this mean for emergency business communications?
Now more than ever, citizens are getting invested in politics, monitoring communications, and trying to find ways to hold government entities accountable for what happens behind closed doors.
The push for transparency in government is nothing new, but the landscape has changed over the past few decades commensurate with the rise of new communication technologies.
Agencies are always on the lookout for ways to enhance their communication networks, particularly their alerting systems. Remote administration is the go-to solution for addressing the challenges of multimodal alerting. Strong remote administration tools represent a type of service-first methodology that offers comprehensive benefits across:
Ransomware has been a malicious tool used by attackers to extort money since the late 1980s. In the decades since, ransomware has gone through multiple stages of evolution, becoming increasingly sophisticated and destructive. Here, we will explore how ransomware has changed over the years and discuss modern techniques attackers use to create more powerful threats.