Three cybersecurity companies offered U.S. hospitals free protection as the federal government's concern about Russian cyber retaliation increases as the war in Ukraine escalates, The Washington Post reported.
On March 7, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike and Ping Identity announced that they would give away four months of their services to U.S. hospitals — which have been frequent targets of Russian ransomware gangs — and to electricity and water utility companies.
"It's just hospitals, power and water right now," Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare told the Post. "We built the list in consultation with industry and government experts to protect the most vulnerable and currently underprotected sectors. We may expand to other sectors in the future if there's need."
The companies will be offering services such as multifactor authentication for logins and protection from denial-of-service attacks to any size organization that is not already a customer.
Although there has not been a surge in cyberattacks on American companies or organizations, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has urged U.S. organizations, which have less experience fending off attacks, to shield up their systems in case of a Russian cybersecurity attack, according to the Post.