EW SHOW DAILY
28
ASCRS Symposia
by Ellen Stodola EyeWorld Senior Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
C
ybersecurity was the
main topic in a Monday
afternoon symposium
sponsored by the ASCRS
Health IT Committee.
Scott Peterson, Lewisburg, Pennsyl-
vania, moderated the session, which
covered "The Biggest Cybersecurity
Mistakes You Don't Want to Make:
Horror Stories from the Medical
Practice Frontlines."
The session also featured Fred
Reck, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania,
Ryan Ferry, Port Trevorton, Penn-
sylvania, and Joe Theine, MBA,
COE, Durango, Colorado.
Mr. Theine discussed cyberat-
tacks, detailing one that his practice,
Four Corners Eye Clinic, dealt with.
He started by describing the clinic,
which is in a remote location in
Colorado.
He listed the tools the prac-
tice had in place before the attack,
which included a local IT vendor
(who managed IT services and was
HIT symposium looks at cybersecurity
attacks and mistakes
continued on page 29
responsible for server monitoring),
employee education, an employee
separation process, and hardware/
software (including remote desktop
connection, firewall, antivirus soft-
ware; they were routinely updated
through managed IT services, and
fiber internet 10MB dedicated ser-
vice).
What his practice experienced
was a "brute force attack," which
occurred late on a Saturday evening/
early Sunday morning. The attack
was "so prolific that the band-
width to the server [was] almost
consumed," he said. The IT firm
received an alert and shut down
external access to the server, with no
immediate impact to the practice.
This attack, Mr. Theine said, affect-
ed far more than just his business,
and the IT firm was initially over-
whelmed just shutting down access
to clients.
Mr. Reck shares ways to protect yourself from hackers.
