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Cyberattacks plague health care. Critics call the federal response 'inadequate'

The Change Healthcare cyberattack sparked a new strategy from the federal government on preventing destructive ransomware crimes. Critics say it doesn't go far enough.

The department’s interest in protecting patient health and safety “does put hospitals near the top of our priority partners list,” Brian Mazanec, a deputy director at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response at HHS, said in an interview. It inherited cybersecurity when Trump-era department leadership made a grab for more money and authority, said Chris Meekins, who worked for the preparedness office under Trump and is now an analyst with the investment bank Raymond James. When an industry clearinghouse for cyberthreats tried to coordinate with it to create an incident response process, “it took probably three years to identify anyone willing to support” the effort, said Jim Routh, the then-board chair of the group, Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

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