HHS, HITrust offer free cyberthreat briefings

HHS and the Health Information Trust Alliance, a healthcare data security collaborative, will be hosting monthly briefings on cybersecurity threats designed to help healthcare organizations better deal with such threats.

“Collaboration is crucial to reducing cyberthreats for the entire healthcare industry, including the government,” said Kevin Charest, chief information security officer for HHS, in a news release. “These briefings and alerts allow us to better disseminate valuable and critical information to healthcare organizations more effectively so they can better prepare and respond to cyberthreats and events.”

The monthly online briefings will last about an hour and are scheduled to start in April. They will be offered free, using resources and content created by the Frisco, Texas-based HITrust and by HHS' Computer Security Incident Response Center.

They aim “to provide greater and more actionable information on recent, ongoing and prospective cyberthreats and events, as well as any lessons learned,” the HITrust statement said. “The briefings are intended to support healthcare organizations of all sizes as well as cybersecurity maturity levels.”

More information about the briefings and a registration form is available at the organization's website.

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