This Week Health
2 Minute Drill: Iran Cyber Threats, Microsoft Scams, and the 1300% Deepfake Surge with Drex DeFord

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Drex breaks down three critical cybersecurity developments healthcare organizations need to monitor. First, escalating geopolitical tensions suggest increased cyber attacks from Iran and allied nations targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, including healthcare systems. Second, Vanderbilt University Medical Center reports sophisticated Microsoft Teams impersonation attacks where scammers pose as supervisors to request urgent actions like software installation or payments. Finally, deepfake fraud attempts skyrocketed 1300% in 2024, with new "spoofing as a service" platforms making AI-powered voice and video scams more accessible to cybercriminals. Healthcare IT leaders should prepare defenses against these evolving threats and educate staff on verification protocols for suspicious requests.

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Transcript

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 Hey everyone. I'm Drex and this is the two minute drill where I cover three hot security stories twice a week. All part of the 2 29 Project. Cyber and Risk community here at this week, health, you can join the community. I'll keep you posted on all the latest webinars and podcasts and other insider info, and I'll keep you looped in as we kind of barnstorm the country on our 2 29 Project City Tour dinners and summits, and something new coming soon.

It's easy to stay in the know. Go to this week health.com/subscribe, and then sign up for all the latest insights, including our security and risk updates. It's great to see everyone today. Here's some stuff you might wanna know about. I. Given the Israeli Iran conflict continues to ratchet up and the fact that we live in an era of hybrid war, you should probably expect to see more cyber attacks from Iran and likely their allies, Russia, North Korea, and China, along with some independent hacker groups who are looking to put their marks, their stamp on the war.

While much of Iran cyber activity has been Middle East focused. Don't be surprised if they branch out into other areas like us. Critical infrastructure. So, heads up. Here's one more thing to keep your eye on. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has come across some incidents where users received Microsoft teams calls that initially appeared to be from a direct supervisor only to have the contact info change.

To something else. Once the call was answered, the caller then asked for something urgent, like installing software or accessing a file or sending a payment. I've only heard about this issue at VUMC. But it's probably a good idea to remind your team's users that they can't. 100% rely on caller ID and the display name.

deepfake fraud attempts rose:

DeepFakes I. Synthetic voice technology and other AI video and voice scams are kind of changing everything right now. And there's even a spoofing as a service platform available now on the dark web, along with tutorials on how to bypass traditional defenses using this new AI tech. So from time to time, I'm gonna take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly side of synthetic voice and video capabilities.

Tech is really crazy. And you need to know about it. The new feature will be called un Fake, and again, it'll be intermittent, and I'll include those shows as part of our UNH Hack, the podcast series. You can stay up to date on all the latest healthcare, innovation, tech and security news at our news site this week, health.com/news.

That's it for today's two minute drill. Thanks for being here. Stay a little paranoid and I'll see you around campus.

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