June 23, 2025

Urgent Cybersecurity Advisory From DOH: Elevated Threats Amid Escalating Situation in Iran

Following yesterday's U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, intelligence sources indicate a high likelihood of cyberattacks and heightened cybersecurity threat activity against the critical infrastructure of the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member states.

The New York State Department of Health (DOH) has issued an urgent cybersecurity advisory urging all providers and related organizations providing critical health and public health services to remain vigilant and be prepared to monitor, respond, and report any cybersecurity incidents. The DOH will share additional information as it becomes available.

Providers and related organizations should review, update and ensure organizational awareness of their disaster and emergency response plan and cybersecurity incident response plan, and verify they have adequate backups of critical systems and data. Organizations should also secure their Operational Technology (OT) systems against cyberattack by removing OT connections to the public internet, change default passwords and use strong, unique passwords, secure remote access to OT networks, and segment IT and OT networks.

For further guidance, refer to the advisory from the U.S. Homeland Security and the attached threat bulletins from the NYS Intelligence Center (NYSIC) and the Health-ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center).

Incident Reporting Requirements

As a reminder, NYS Cybersecurity regulations (Section 405.46 - Hospital Cybersecurity Requirements) require general hospitals to report cybersecurity incidents to the NYS Department of Health.

Other health and public health organizations are strongly encouraged to report material cybersecurity incidents to the NYS Department of Health.

To report a material cybersecurity incident, call the NYS Department of Health's Surge Operations Center (SOC) at 917-909-2676.