In reply to Courtney.

Courtney: Medical device security is a growing area of concern across health systems, one that has only recently reached the mainstream press for public discussion, although security professionals have voiced concern for many years.

In 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a report that predicted hackers could assail medical devices. They followed that up a year later with an alert warning companies and the public about cybersecurity risks to networked medical devices and wearable sensors.

Although the concern is not new, the risks have been steadily increasing as more and more medical devices have been attached to hospital networks, while at the same time formerly separate biomed networks (for medical devices) have been converged with the main hospital business network to form a single network thus exacerbating risks to both networks.

Securing these devices is now a big concern for healthcare leaders and that’s one of the reasons for looking into alternate ways of securing them.