Healthcare professionals have used artificial intelligence for decades, starting in the 1970s with rule-based systems that aided in disease diagnosis and drug prescription. These early systems were useful but limited,…
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The Internet of Things (IoT) is embraced by many healthcare organizations, but it also brings security vulnerabilities.
A recent study from Vectra reveals that IoT devices within healthcare organizations pose challenges to the security and privacy of user data. Chris Morales, head of security analytics at Vectra says the combination of IoT devices, legacy systems, unpartitioned networks, and weak access controls makes providers particularly vulnerable. As we pointed out in a recent article, CIOs are increasingly important to modern healthcare organizations, but the lack of cybersecurity expertise is creating gaps in healthcare security that need to be addressed.
IoT devices are being adopted throughout the healthcare industry. Consumer IoT devices like smart cameras provide an inexpensive alternative to enterprise security systems. Smart speakers are deployed in hospitals and home care settings to remind patients to take medication and give them verbal control of their environment. Health tracking and monitoring hardware are used to measure glucose levels and heart rates in real time. Connected devices relay data to cloud services.
Yet because all of these devices are equipped with sensors, data storage, and network connections, they all represent a potential source of vulnerability.
The IOT is Changing Healthcare – But Also Introducing New Security Concerns
Just a decade ago, the networks deployed by healthcare organizations included desktops and servers. The CIO’s role was to manage these and ensure they were locked down. Today, there are certainly many more internet-connected devices than people in a healthcare facility. The proliferation of devices poses a serious risk because security professionals have much less insight into the software and hardware deployed on the IoT. We have seen many instances of networks that were compromised because of the lax security of an internet-connected camera and similar devices.
The solution is not to abandon the IoT. It’s far too useful. After all, smart devices have been shown to improve patient outcomes and contribute to more efficient business operations.
But healthcare organizations must take care when deploying smart devices. Network partitioning is one of the most important steps a healthcare business can take to protect their patient and business data. Hackable IoT devices may be a fact of life, but there’s no reason to hook them up to internal networks that allow attackers to move from a hacked smart camera to servers storing sensitive data, or to legacy medical devices manufactured when the IoT was far in the future.
Is Your Executive Leadership Ready for Modern Cybersecurity Challenges?
Healthcare organizations need talented cybersecurity leadership if they are to take advantage of the consumer IoT and the medical IoT without putting patient data at risk of exposure or their business at risk of regulatory non-compliance. That means hiring talented CIOs and giving them the authority, budgets, and support they need to overhaul security and privacy practices and make their organization better suited to the modern threat landscape.
To learn how TD Madison can help your healthcare business hire cybersecurity leaders with the expertise and experience to safely deploy modern technology in healthcare settings, get in touch with TD Madison’s recruitment team today.
