Cybersecurity initiative devotes $50 million to help hospitals combat ransomware

Editor's Note

A $50 million initiative to develop cybersecurity tools for hospitals aims to protect providers and patients alike from ransomware, according to a May 20 report in Becker’s Health IT.

The Universal PatchinG and Remediation for Autonomous DEfense, or UPGRADE, program was launched the same day by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an independent entity within the National Institutes of Health formed in 2022.

Announced on the heels of ransomware attacks against Change Healthcare and Ascension UPGRADE seeks proposals in four areas:

• Creating a vulnerability mitigation platform
• Developing high-fidelity digital twins of equipment in hospital environments
• Rapidly and automatically detecting software vulnerabilities
• Confidently developing defenses for each vulnerability