John Falcetano (john.falcetano@brooksrehab.org) is Director Corporate Compliance at Brooks Health System in Jacksonville, FL.

A critical element of any effective compliance program is monitoring. As a service to our members, each month this column focuses on potential monitors for specific business lines or functions.

One major security concern for compliance professionals is that your organization’s information systems will be inappropriately accessed by some outside actor. While there are many ways information systems can be inappropriately accessed, recently, ransomware has become a major security threat and has been recognized as a major concern for all types of entities, from hospitals to the oil and gas industry. While the term ransomware has been in the news lately, many people are unfamiliar with it, thus making ransomware even more of a threat.