Cybersecurity – The Flipside of Digitization

It used to be science fiction.  Now, it’s real. Hackers can use an unprotected infusion pump on the network as a gateway to your hospital’s data. A staff member might unknowingly download a malicious PDF from an email. Or perhaps a virus has been lurking undetected in your network for some time.

The threat landscape is changing fast, and it can be overwhelming to keep up. You have security protocols in place, but are they comprehensive enough to protect your patients and data?

The latest network products and solutions have evolved to incorporate security and protection by design, including:

Ensuring that only authorized users have access to data and systems is critical to IT security. This includes Role Based Access Control (RBAC), which limits what a user can do based on function. For example, RBAC can prevent a staff member in Accounting from accessing medical records or other data not related to his or her role.

Endpoint security software protects the local device by running anti-virus and anti-malware protection. Patch management also ensures that all security and operating system patches are applied as soon as they become available.

A secure and carefully monitored network is critical to a secure, connected healthcare infrastructure. Network intelligence includes rule-based network access which using classifications, can deny device access to the network if they are not fully patched or recognized. Policies and practices then determine how traffic can flow across the network and monitor for exceptions indicating a breach. Additionally, behavioral analytics allows security teams to identify abnormal traffic patterns, enabling detection of anomalies caused by users, applications, malware, or devices.

To explore these opportunities and network security solutions in more depth, Creative Intellect Consulting has developed a series of four papers – click the button below for the paper on security priorities for IoT and connected healthcare.

In case you missed it:

The network foundation for IoT and connected healthcare

Don’t miss the rest of the series which delves deeper into clinical workflows and patient experience. Check back with us tomorrow to learn more!