SECURITY PROTECTION TOOLS FOR NETWORKED MEDICAL DEVICES
Cybersecurity incidents are among the greatest concerns of businesses, government agencies, and private citizens today. In the modern world, the protection of data and information assets is nearly as important as maintaining the security of the physical assets. This created the need for
increased security implementations, leading to improved user acceptance of such applications and thus to large-scale adoption of these technologies and to full exploitation of their advantages. However, for healthcare in particular, the constantly increasing digitalisation, the digital preservation and use of sensitive data, the introduction of cloud computing and decentralised architectures, as well as the booming market of mobile and wearable devices come along with the cost of proliferation of cybercrime and the creation of malicious applications. As cyber attackers strike clinical and financial systems, healthcare providers that do not protect and defend their patients’ data could lose customers and billions in patient revenue.
Hospital connected devices and pervasive healthcare is highly multifaceted, with many applications focusing on interoperability with the legacy hospital assets, the “traditional hospital”, the security and privacy of sensitive information and the usability of end users. The introduction of “smart hospitals” brings increased patient safety and efficiency. Due to the great number of significant assets at stake (patient life, sensitive personal information and financial resources) information security is a key issue for smart hospitals. As the attack surface increases with the introduction of networked medical devices, the attack potential grows exponentially. This increases the relevance of information security for smart hospitals, since cyber attackers can take over and exploit any medical device connected to a network, from MRI machines to electric wheelchairs. In this context, addressing cybersecurity threats for Networked Media Devices, and thus reducing information security risks, is especially challenging, since these threats cannot be completely eliminated, manufacturers, hospitals and facilities must work together to manage them.
