Cybersecurity in Healthcare

In recent times following the pandemic, healthcare and medicine affiliated organizations have been falling victim to more and more cyber attacks on data and other resources. Facing the severity and speed of the pandemic was no easy task, and required the spread of all of healthcare’s resources to face the sheer volume of work needed to be accomplished. As a result of these more imminent and life-threatening tasks requiring more focus, cybersecurity and potential attacks were sidelined, leaving healthcare and patient data more vulnerable to attack. In addition to cybersecurity becoming less of a focus in the healthcare department, hackers began to take advantage of this situation and take more targeted approaches on large strained healthcare institutions.

However, these risks were just as prevalent in previous years. While technology has consistently advanced and bettered medicine and healthcare, it also brought vulnerability and risks along with it. Any of these internet or cloud based systems can be hacked, leading to files like patient records, computers, and websites being completely vulnerable to attack. Even critical tools used for patient monitoring and building security become potentially at risk. Thousands upon thousands of medical devices and electronic tools are used in hospitals for all sorts of tasks, like tracking data, performing scans, and even regulating breathing. Each of these tasks are critical in the grand scheme of a hospital, and each one of these devices brings risk along with them. By simply connecting to the internet or any network to begin with, these devices become a point of access for anybody, whether it be a healthcare official or a potential hacker. By incorporating more and more devices into a synchronous network, called the Internet of Medical Things, each of these potential connections becomes a risk and liability to the overall safety of the network.

As a result, hospitals and other healthcare institutions must remain cautious and diligent in ensuring that their cyberspace is kept secure and protected. Even the smallest breaches may result in the loss of several patient’s confidential records, and also negatively affect technology and diagnostic equipment necessary in hospitals and clinics.

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity can be defined as technology, practices, or processes used to protect networks and devices from threats like unauthorized access or criminal usage. After determining the importance of data like patient records and hospital equipment, strategies for maintaining and improving cybersecurity were developed and practiced.

One definite step towards security and cybersecurity in healthcare was the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed in 1996, which essentially created national standards of security and protection for vulnerable data like patient health information. HIPAA established the need for information protection, set standards for security in data transmission and usage in third party companies and healthcare institutions, and required breaches of information to be reported to affected individuals.

As a result of HIPAA, healthcare and affiliated organizations took necessary actions against breaches and cyberattacks, in order to protect the increasing amounts of digital information that patients brought with them.

Threats to Cybersecurity

There are several common threats to cybersecurity in this day and age. One such common threat to cybersecurity is malicious traffic, where insecure connections to networks are created, allowing unknown and potentially malicious files or software to be downloaded. Healthcare organizations tend to encounter such issues as a result of apps and software accessing faulty or malicious links and downloading malicious software.

In addition, phishing attacks are another significant threat to healthcare organizations. Phishing attacks tend to look like typical and trusted emails with a link attached, often asking employees or other members in the system to click on a link which could lead to a site where sensitive information could be leaked or malware downloaded. This is especially risky with older or uneducated employees, who are more susceptible to these attacks since they wouldn’t know the risks or implications of phishing.

Both of these attacks directly access information, whether it be hospital or patient records, but could also plant malware or ransomware. In these situations, malware is used to take control of hospital information, technology, or records, and ransom the organization for their own information or technology. By holding this information “hostage”, hospitals are left with a desperate need to access technology or information to treat their patients who could potentially be in critical condition where time is of the essence to their recovery. In order to protect their patients first, hospitals often pay this ransom to immediately use their equipment and data in situations where patients’ lives are at risk and time is of the essence.

Another factor to threats to cybersecurity is the devices it runs on. Medical devices and personal devices can add risks and vulnerabilities and make systems even more susceptible to attack. Smart devices and devices that link to the Internet of Medical Things are all potentially threats to healthcare information and data. These devices need to be consistently updated and tested in order to maintain strong systems of cybersecurity. Even personal devices that employees or patients use to access medical networks and the like are at risk for hacks and attacks that could lead to massive threats to cybersecurity.

Effects of COVID 19

Work from home protocols initiated following the pandemic would lead to a number of potential vulnerabilities in home environments, with employees using their personal devices and networks to access healthcare data. These devices are mostly unregulated and security is left up to the owner. As a result, there are significant vulnerabilities for work from home devices.

Additionally, there was an increasing amount of cyberattacks aiming for COVID 19 data and vaccine data, with many breaches of healthcare companies for such data. For example, Pfizer was breached and data regarding the vaccine was stolen. Combine this with the overall increase of cyberattacks caused by the pandemic, and you can see why healthcare companies are so at risk and desperately need improvements in cybersecurity.

Impacts

There are several potential impacts of breaches in cybersecurity in the medical space, resulting in significant financial and personal effects. Cyberattacks often result in monetary losses following the successes of breaches and the implantation of ransomware. Healthcare companies would likely have to use money to reclaim their data or tech, potentially even needing to pay individuals affected or face legislative fines.

Healthcare companies are often organizations put immense trust in, believing that following their guidance and being treated by them could save their lives. When healthcare companies end up being attacked and lose confidential patient information, their trust and reputation falls under question. When these companies then have to follow protocol and take steps to ensure a similar situation doesn’t occur again, productivity and normal procedure is slowed, resulting in impacts on patient care and wellness. Having technology be shut down while updates or security improvements occur would also factor into how effective a healthcare company would be, causing a definite hindrance on typical procedure. By slowing down to recuperate after an attack, hospitals directly affect the wellness of their patients.

Possible Precautions

A primary and critical part of precautions against cyberattacks, and one that would massively reduce vulnerabilities, is technological training for all healthcare staff and workers. By telling people about risks and proper process to protect healthcare information, phishing emails and malicious traffic can be significantly reduced. Knowing the risks of untrusted sites and files, while knowing the useable and safe networks and links, can result in a lot of the risk of phishing and malicious traffic being eradicated.

Additionally, maintaining plans for the cases of ransomware would be very effective in cybersecurity. By making response plans, healthcare companies can continue to work at similar levels of productivity and efficiency, even if their data or technology is unusable or at risk. Keeping backups of data would also be very useful, as then data that is accessed or locked by hackers would have usable backups. These backups could save significant time and allow for information to continue to flow freely, allowing for patient’s information to accessed in backups and thus be useless when held by attackers for ransoms.

Staying vigilant and continuing to patch vulnerabilities and test risks in the current security system would also prove useful to healthcare companies as their cybersecurity could be improved by removing any risks and continually testing their process to seek potential updates or improvements. Requiring all third parties that also access healthcare data would improve also security and safety, as their cybersecurity would also be critical to the protection of patient information. Controlling and segmenting access to information is also key to improving cybersecurity. Allowing employees and devices to see only information they need would divide data into more secure sectors. Limiting access to networks to necessary devices and people would also reduce the number of vulnerabilities in the system.

To construct all of these precautions in an effective manner would take time and effort for sure, with many current aspects of healthcare companies having to take significant strides to reach an optimally secure network. However, healthcare companies are seeing the need to drastically improve their procedures and conduct to keep up with the times, whether it be in terms of the improving medical technology or the increasing numbers of attacks. The dismal responses of current healthcare cybersecurity to the mounting number of attacks has been a wakeup call to many cybersecurity experts and healthcare IT workers, leading to plans being put in place for improvement. By preparing response plans and educating their workers, while also staying vigilant and monitoring for potential threats, healthcare companies and organizations can better protect themselves and their patients from online threats.