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Your Medical Office Got a Phishing Email — Here's What to Do in 15 Minutes

Your Medical Office Got a Phishing Email — Here's What to Do - Medical IT | iTech Plus

It’s 2:15 PM on a Tuesday. Your front desk coordinator just clicked a link in an email that looked like it came from your EHR vendor. Now she’s staring at a screen asking for her login credentials — and she already typed them in.

Your stomach drops. You’re thinking: Did we just get hacked? Is patient data exposed? What do I do right now?

Take a breath. You have about 15 minutes to contain this before it potentially becomes a much bigger problem. This guide gives you the exact steps to follow — in plain English, in order — so your medical office can respond to a phishing email quickly and correctly.

The 15-Minute Phishing Response Plan for Medical Offices

Phishing emails are the number one way hackers break into medical practices. Not through some sophisticated movie-style hack — through a convincing fake email that tricks someone on your staff into clicking a link or opening an attachment.

Here’s your step-by-step medical office phishing response plan. Print this out. Tape it to the wall in your break room. Make sure every staff member knows where to find it.

Minutes 0-2: Stop and Disconnect the Device

Immediately disconnect the affected computer from the internet. This is the single most important thing you can do in the first two minutes.

If it’s a desktop computer plugged into the wall with an ethernet cable, unplug that cable from the back of the computer
If it’s on Wi-Fi, turn off Wi-Fi (click the Wi-Fi icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen and select “Disconnect”)
If it’s a laptop, you can also just close the lid — but turning off Wi-Fi is faster and more reliable
Do NOT turn off the computer. Your IT team may need to examine what’s running on it

Why this matters: If malware was downloaded, disconnecting from the network stops it from spreading to other computers in your office or sending patient data out to the attacker.

Minutes 2-5: Change Passwords Immediately

Using a different device (not the one that was compromised), change passwords for:

The email account that was targeted — if the staff member entered their email password, change it right now
The EHR/EMR system — if they used the same password (and let’s be honest, many people do), change it there too
Any other system where that same password is used — Microsoft 365, billing software, patient portal admin, practice management system

If your practice uses multi-factor authentication (MFA) — where you get a code texted to your phone or through an app in addition to your password — the damage may already be limited. This is one of the biggest reasons cybersecurity measures like MFA matter so much for medical practices.

Pro tip: When creating the new passwords, don’t just add a “1” or “!” to the end of the old one. Make it genuinely different. A good password is at least 14 characters — a random phrase like “PurpleLampRunsFast” works better than “P@ssw0rd123”.

Minutes 5-8: Check for Signs of Data Exposure

On a clean device, quickly check for these warning signs:

Sent folder: Log into the compromised email account and check the sent folder. Did the attacker send emails from this account to other people? (This is how phishing spreads internally — the attacker sends fake emails from a trusted colleague)
Email forwarding rules: Check if any new forwarding rules were created. Attackers often set up a rule to forward all incoming email to an outside address, so they keep getting your messages even after you change the password
EHR access logs: If your EHR system has an audit trail (most do), check for any unusual access — patient records being viewed or exported that don’t match normal workflow
Login history: Check if there were any logins from unfamiliar locations or IP addresses

Minutes 8-12: Contact Your IT Provider

Call your IT support provider — not email, call them. This is an urgent situation and email might be compromised.

Tell them:

What happened (clicked a link, opened an attachment, entered credentials)
What device was affected
What accounts may be compromised
What steps you’ve already taken (disconnected device, changed passwords)

If you have a managed IT provider with a help desk, this is exactly the kind of situation where 24/7 availability matters. Your IT team can remotely scan the disconnected device, check your network for signs of intrusion, and determine whether the threat has been contained.

If you don’t have an IT provider — or your current one isn’t answering — this is the wake-up call that reactive, break/fix IT isn’t enough for a medical practice handling protected health information.

Minutes 12-15: Document Everything for HIPAA

This is the step most medical offices forget in the heat of the moment — and it’s the one that matters most from a compliance standpoint.

HIPAA requires you to document any security incident, whether or not it results in a confirmed breach. Write down:

Date and time the phishing email was received and when the link was clicked
Who was involved — which staff member, which device
What the email looked like — save a screenshot or the email itself if possible
What information may have been exposed — was PHI (protected health information) accessible from the compromised account?
What steps you took and when — disconnection, password changes, IT notification
Who you notified — your IT provider, your HIPAA privacy officer, your practice owner/managing physician

Under the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, if protected health information was accessed or exposed, you may be required to notify affected patients and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Your IT provider and legal counsel can help determine if this threshold was met.

After the 15 Minutes: What Happens Next

Once the immediate crisis is handled, there’s still work to do over the next few days:

Have your IT team do a full scan of every device on the network, not just the one that was compromised
Review email security settings — are spam filters catching similar messages? Should filtering rules be updated?
Check endpoint protection on all workstations — antivirus, anti-malware, and device management should be current
Send an all-staff alert describing the phishing email so everyone knows what to look for
Review your backup systems — confirm that a clean backup exists in case you need to restore
Schedule follow-up phishing training within the next 30 days

How to Recognize a Phishing Email Before Anyone Clicks

The best phishing response is preventing the click in the first place. Here’s what your staff should watch for — share this list at your next team meeting.

Suspicious Subject Lines

Phishing emails almost always try to create urgency or fear. Watch for subject lines like:

“Your account has been suspended — verify immediately”
“Urgent: Update your password within 24 hours”
“You have a new fax/voicemail from [EHR vendor name]”
“Action required: Review attached invoice”
“IT Department: Mandatory security update”

Any email that demands immediate action and threatens consequences is suspicious. Legitimate vendors give you reasonable timeframes and don’t threaten to shut off your access in 24 hours.

Sender Spoofing

The “From” name might say “athenahealth Support” — but if you look at the actual email address, it’s something like support@athena-health-billing.com or noreply@athena.security-update.net. Always check the full email address, not just the display name.

Other spoofing tricks include:

Replacing a lowercase “L” with a capital “I” (they look identical in many fonts)
Adding extra words to a legitimate domain (e.g., microsoft-secure-login.com is NOT Microsoft)
Using a .net or .org version of a company that uses .com

Urgency Tactics and Emotional Triggers

Phishing works by bypassing your rational thinking. Attackers know that medical offices are busy and stressed. They target:

Fear: “Your HIPAA certification will be revoked” or “Patient records have been accessed”
Authority: Emails pretending to be from your managing physician, HHS, or a government agency
Routine: Fake invoices, shipping notifications, or software update alerts that blend into your normal workflow
Curiosity: “Someone shared a document with you” or “You have an unread message from a patient”

Other Red Flags

Generic greetings like “Dear User” instead of your actual name
Spelling and grammar errors (though AI-generated phishing emails are getting much better at this)
Links that don’t match the text — hover over any link before clicking to see where it actually goes
Attachments you weren’t expecting, especially .zip files, .exe files, or documents asking you to “enable macros”
Emails from colleagues that seem out of character (“Hey, can you buy gift cards for the office?”)

Why Medical Offices Are the #1 Phishing Target

Healthcare is the most targeted industry for phishing and cyberattacks — and it’s not because hackers have a grudge against doctors. It’s because:

Medical records are worth 10x more than credit card numbers on the dark web. A stolen credit card can be canceled; a stolen medical record contains Social Security numbers, insurance information, and health data that can be used for identity theft for years
Medical offices are busy. Staff are juggling patients, phone calls, insurance authorizations, and a dozen other tasks. They don’t have time to scrutinize every email — and attackers know this
Many practices have outdated security. Small to mid-size practices often lack the network security infrastructure and staff training that larger health systems invest in
HIPAA penalties create leverage for ransomware. Attackers know that practices will pay to avoid a breach that triggers six-figure HIPAA fines

Build a Phishing Response Culture, Not Just a Plan

Having a response plan is essential. But the goal is to build a culture where your staff feels comfortable reporting suspicious emails — without fear of getting in trouble.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

No-blame reporting: When someone reports a suspicious email, thank them publicly. When someone clicks a phishing link, treat it as a training opportunity, not a disciplinary event
Regular training: Quarterly phishing simulations help staff recognize threats. Your managed IT provider should be able to set these up for you
Easy reporting process: Create a simple method for flagging suspicious emails — a shared email address like suspicious@yourpractice.com or a one-click “Report Phishing” button in Outlook
Post-incident reviews: After any phishing incident, debrief with the whole team. What did the email look like? What made it convincing? What can everyone learn?

Don’t Wait for a Phishing Attack to Get Prepared

If your medical practice doesn’t have a phishing response plan — or if your current cybersecurity setup wouldn’t have caught the scenario described at the top of this article — it’s time to fix that before you’re dealing with a real incident.

iTech Plus helps medical practices across Tampa, Orlando, Lakeland, and Central Florida build real cybersecurity defenses — including phishing simulations, email filtering, endpoint protection, and the kind of 24/7 monitoring that catches threats before they become breaches.