Cybersecurity in Healthcare: Protecting Patient Data in a Digital World

What is your salary? Okay, you must be thinking that this writer is getting too personal. Well, no one wants to disclose personal or sensitive information, because it makes people insecure. It may expose them to unforeseen, unpleasant situations. If the question of salary is enough to make you uncomfortable, then you can imagine how important healthcare data is for a person, a health organization, or even a country. What does sensitive healthcare information include and how is it secured? Possible consequences of its disclosure. What is the importance of cybersecurity in healthcare? This blog will make you familiar with every aspect of cybersecurity in healthcare.

What Is Cybersecurity And Its Application In Healthcare?

Cyber Attack is the process of invading a network to harm it. A special practice to keep the networks, services, devices, and data safe from such attacks is known as cybersecurity.

Similarly, when cybersecurity functions to safeguard the data related to the health industry that is regarded as healthcare cybersecurity. It covers medicine manufacturers, medical equipment/devices manufacturers, and biotechnology related companies.

Cybersecurity In Healthcare: To secure What And Why?

1. Emails

Perhaps, the most common way of communication in a professional environment is emailing. Interestingly, an email can contain medical data of extreme sensitivity, like a patient report. To intensify the tension further, what if the patient here is the head of any organization or country? Thus, it is crucial to take care of the email in a healthcare organization.

2. Medical Devices

All the electronic devices that healthcare organizations use to collect, assess, store, and process medical data are known as medical devices. Since these electronic equipment are related to sensitive and often protected information, medical device cybersecurity must be one of the top priorities.

Above all, authorities issue guidelines to take care of the medical data. These guidelines mention cybersecurity and medical devices in a sentence quite often. Yes, medical devices, like patients’ monitors or even pacemakers, can be the targets of cyber attacks.

3. Internet of Things (IoT)

This is certainly a commonly accepted technique in the various types of organizations and healthcare is not an exception here. It is a network of linked devices that perform action. If attackers can access these devices in an unauthorized manner, the risk to mankind can be unimaginable indeed. There are a few IoT devices discussed ahead:

Remote Patient Monitor devices are quite common in the medical field. This technique allows the patient to get rid of frequent physician visits. Moreover, the installation of the device makes sure that it captures vital readings like temperature, heartbeat per minute, and blood glucose levels.

These are especially useful when the doctor needs real-time data monitoring. These devices are set in a way that these devices send signals (such as beep, screen pop-up, or any alarm). It suggests to the doctor that the patient needs a doctor.

In the healthcare sector, sanitization is one of the top priorities. It may be an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or operation theater (OT) in a hospital; or an Intravenous (IV) production unit in a pharmaceutical company, and sanitization is a must-have point. Malpractice while sanitization can risk the lives of hundreds of people.

Similarly, other related systems are elevators, heating ventilation, and air conditioning. To attack and get access to these devices can make the attacker powerful enough to control the workflow in an organization.

4. Instruments or Robotics Surgery

Robotic surgeries are not too difficult to find in the hospitals. Since the instruments are becoming superior with the technological advancements, doctors are relying way more than ever before on robotic surgery techniques. Moreover, these devices are preferred for surgical activities over human hands. Attack on the surgical robot can be life-threatening.

5. Medicine Manufacturing Machine

In medicinal production plants, operators operate the majority of the machines using an electronically controlled system. If attackers attack these machines, then they can be able to alter the composition and the content of a medicine.

6. Aging Infrastructure

Like any other sector, many kinds of devices in healthcare get obsolete with time. To manage the data on those devices is always a pivotal task to perform. Because old devices might contain clues to enter the new devices. So, the access to those devices might serve as a gateway to the current devices.

How Do Attackers Attack?

A. Phishing

It is a technique that attackers use to get unauthorized access to the system. For this, mostly email becomes the weapon. In many cases, email id resembles one of the staff members of the organization, and asks for access to the system. Whenever the email recipient does not recognize the fact that the email is problematic, the attacker gets access to the system.

Thereafter, any activity to either extract, disable, or deform data is not impossible to perform. Moreover, that might not be restricted to only that particular device that received that email, but linked systems or networks can be under attack too.

B. Ransomware

This is a special kind of Cyber Armament that attackers use to encrypt data. The data that ransomware encrypts simply becomes of no use to the company to which the data originally belonged to. Thus, the only way to retrieve that data is to pay the attacker, if the organization does not have any backup of the encrypted data.

C. Others

Lost or stolen devices, like laptops or hard drives can pose a threat to the sensitive data in any healthcare organization. Similarly, cybersecurity in healthcare can be compromised if any threat lies within the organization. That threat may be any of the staff members.

How To Implement Cybersecurity In Healthcare?

1. Devices management

To begin with, to manage devices in the healthcare sector is the bare minimum that a cybersecurity personnel needs to do. This includes keeping all the safety segments of the devices up-to-date, making sure the device is connecting to a secure network etc.

2. Educate staff

Staff needs to be ethical and if required then legally bound to keep the data safe. Besides, education (through workshops) is certainly important for the staff. This allows the staff to be aware of the possible threats and secure both the data and the integrity of the organization.

3. Risk assessments

This should certainly be a continuous process in a healthcare organization to evaluate if any device or network is attacked. This helps the data saviors to work immediately if any discrepancy they find in the cybersecurity lineup.

How Can You Be An Expert In Cybersecurity?

Because its application in the future is going to increase many times it will become a career option for many too. You can be among those special cybersecurity experts. For that, you should go for a Postgraduate Cybersecurity Course.

When one of the best platforms for online education, i.e. Henry Harvin, offers a course it is good to opt for. The credibility of Henry Harvin is outstanding, as it has been in online education for more than a decade now. Furthermore, over three dozen categories and a thousand-plus courses make Henry Harvin special. Here are a few salient features of the course listed ahead

288 hours of course duration in the form of live classes
Recording of all the live sessions
Access to a Learning Management System (LMS) for 1 year to study whenever you want
Projects to apply the learnings
Certification from Henry Harvin and the National Skill Development Council (NSDC)
100% Placement assistance
Complementary masterclasses to enhance soft skills.

Conclusion

To conclude, cybersecurity in healthcare is essential. Because the data in healthcare is too sensitive to disclose. The unauthorized disclosure of healthcare data can put a person, organization, or the entire nation under threat. Thus, The future of cybersecurity in healthcare, as a career option, is immense. You must stay ahead and choose the Henry Harvin cybersecurity course(s) for your better future.

FAQs

Q 1 – What is NAC (Network Access Control)?

Ans – Network access control is a type of cybersecurity-based solution. It makes sure that the access to a network is controlled, i.e. only assigned devices or sets of devices are accessing the network.

Q 2 – Why is healthcare cybersecurity important?

Ans – Healthcare cybersecurity helps healthcare organizations keep their electronic information safe. The healthcare information is too sensitive to disclose. For example, leakage of any personal health information can lead to insurance fraud.

Q 3 – Can an email pose a cybersecurity threat?

Ans – Yes, an email might contain any link that can corrupt the data. Thus, attackers can use this as a way to get access to the recipient’s device. This kind of threat comes under the phishing category.

Q 4 – Is Henry Harvin good for the cybersecurity course?

Ans – In fact, Henry Harvin is among the top online institutions that offer cybersecurity courses. HH offers a whole range of courses from entry-level to expert-level.

Q 5 – What is the future of cybersecurity in healthcare as a career option?

Ans – Healthcare organizations are opting for digitalization of the majority of their activities. It includes all kinds of healthcare data storage as well. Since almost every bit of healthcare information is sensitive, the need for cybersecurity in healthcare will increase too. Thus, cybersecurity in healthcare will offer a lot of opportunities as career options in the future.