Issues Alert: FBI warns of credible cybersecurity threat to dental practices

Important Message for Providers

The American Dental Association (ADA) urges all dental practices to remain vigilant after it was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with information regarding a credible threat to the practices of oral and maxillofacial surgeons.

The FBI provided an example in which the threat actor poses as a new patient or says they want to become a patient at the practice to obtain new patient forms online. Once the forms are received, the threat actor will then contact the practice to report they are having trouble submitting them online and ask if they can scan the forms and email them instead. The threat actor then emails the “forms” as an attachment. When the attachment is opened malware is deployed in a phishing scheme.

The FBI requests dental practices that experience any fraudulent or suspicious activities to report them to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov.

Precautions Practices Can Take

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends four vital ways to protect your practice from cyberthreats:

1. Teach your team to recognize and avoid phishing
2. Require strong passwords
3. Require multifactor authentication
4. Update all business software

The ADA will continue to lead this charge and provide cybersecurity updates as they become available. Please visit ADA.org to see how the ADA advocates on behalf of dentists nationwide.

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