Securing Healthcare Networks Against Cyber Attacks Essay

Ultimately, the software, equipment and cloud solutions the companies and vendors provide will have to demonstrate a high quality of security and reliability. Patients’ private medical data as well as their lives are at risk in this new arena of technology.

There are many essential features found in a heath information system that are designed to protect patient privacy. For starters, at this candidate’s organization, every login is specific to an individual nurse and the

With the enthusiasm for health information technology, potential risks and problems associated with electronic health records have received far less attention. Three fundamental security goals are essential to EHR systems: confidentiality, integrity and availability (Haas e26). Patients lose the protection of implied trust domain of medical institutions due to their medical record maintenance performed by non-medical enterprises (e27). Depending on the paradigm, enabling access to an increased number of users poses threats to security and privacy.

Automation and interconnections with information in their healthcare environments need increasing support, security measures need to be implemented without disrupting the workflow of approved users, costs associated with data breaches and damage to their reputation need to be avoided. IT budgets constraints also impose limitations in many healthcare institutions. Compliance with security and privacy related regulations in healthcare and making sure what policies and standards should be implemented requires solutions that clearly address security challenges so that they can be integrated into a healthcare institution’s existing infrastructure and business practice. As data is transmitted across countless environments and is stored on an ever-expanding grouping of endpoint and storage devices such as computers, laptops, and removable storage devices, it will become evident that there will be a need for strong encryption. Under the HITECH Act and comparable state laws, encrypted data that is received or acquired by unauthorized persons through a lost or stolen electronic device or an errant email, is typically not considered a breach. However, healthcare institutions need to determine the level of encryption they should adopt. For example, a hospital could decide where there is the greatest risk of information loss (patient data in email messages or on storage drive) that is not on internal

Hospital and health facility administrators face hardened criminals who hack medical records with ever-increasing sophistication. Hackers gain access to critical information, such as medical claims, financial data, Social Security numbers and credit card data that enable identity theft, credit card fraud and other privacy breaches. One of the major security failures in the news was the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield attack that exposed 1.1 million of its members to thefts of their personal information.[1] Combined with high-profile breaches at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross, the breach illustrates the changing role of medical administrators

With the introduction of information technology advancement into the hospital health care system, we must embrace in this technology and must ensure that we have a more efficient and secure system. This will allow us to create measures that will allow us to protect electronic protected health information (ePHI). All data that is being transmitted on any open networks will be protected from any cyber attackers or unauthorized personnel. In order to protect this data, any ePHI data will be sent by encrypting the data to ensure that in the event that it is intercepted it

Before a health care organization implements an EMR system, they should have a security system in place, which includes “access control” component. Access control within an EMR system is controlled by distinct user roles and access levels, the enforcement of strong login passwords, severe user verification/authorization and user inactivity locks. Health care of professionals regardless of their level, each have specific permissions for accessing data. Even though the organization have the right security system in place to prevent unauthorized users from access patient records, autonomous patients will expect to have access to his or her records with ease. Access their record will ensure that their information is correct and safe.

Medical devices are another emerging cyber risk for CVS, particularly because many new devices connect to the internet. Medical device security does not end with the manufacturer, it is a shared responsibility between many partners that must find a balance between device operability and security. Interoperability is an important component to medical devices for CVS because it can yield savings by reducing adverse outcomes, redundant testing, and time spent assessing and entering patient information.

For example, in Fitbits, users are easily able to access their health data, such as number of steps taken, number of calories burned, etc. In comparison, for pacemakers, patients are often not allowed to access their data at all, thereby restricting access of personal data to just medical professionals and data collectors. When considering that the user in question cannot access their own private data, regulations are imperative in preventing such data from reaching the wrong hands. In this field, medical devices use encryption to deter hackers or other unwanted visitors from accessing sensitive data (Eramo), but as seen from Mark Gasson, it is not guaranteed to work. By infecting an RFID chip in his hand with a virus, Gasson determined that the virus located in his hand was able to infect external systems (Cellan-Jones). Although medical devices proclaim to be secure, the risk of a virus from another piece of technology infecting these devices is high, with extremely serious consequences. It is imperative to continue pressing for answers regarding the secureness of medical devices and push for more knowledge regarding third party servers that may use medical data for reasons other than

In a world full of electronics it would only seem logical to have health records electronic. Not only are medical records efficient, reliable, and quick to access, new technology allow patients to access their own personal medical records with a simple to use login and password. “People are asking whether any kind of electronic records can be made safe. If one is looking for a 100% privacy guarantee, the answer is no”(Thede, 2010). At my hospital, upon every admission we ask the patient for a password for friends and family to have to have if they would like an update on the patient 's condition. We do not let visitors come up and see the patient without the patient 's consent. In doing these things, we help to ensure the safety and protection of the patient 's health information and privacy.

In today’s society, medical records becomes a huge issue. In many organizations such as healthcare, patient confidentiality becomes a high concern. Having internet health services, creates a challenge for compliance in healthcare. Providers have treated application security and infrastructure security independently until now. Access must be secured for clinical applications to alleviate the concern from providers in healthcare. Therefore, IT infrastructure must be protected from hackers, misusing information as well as thieves. (FairWarning, n.d.)

Early in 2016, I raised concerns pertaining to cybersecurity, as it pertains to medical devices, which lead to a revitalization of a long dormant project in IT. To date we have began to collaborate with IT, Procurement and other division, to recruit the resources and develop the system to support the development of a world class cybersercutiy approach for medical devices. This process will be an evolution, that will develop over the next several

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

This research article examines the security concerns of using mobile technology systems in health care institution. Various methods of ensuring privacy and security of patient’s electronic medical information are addressed. This high quality article is relevant for present day mobile security issues. The authors utilize a host of credible references in the health care and information technology fields.

Information security and privacy is occupying a most important role in the healthcare territory in order to deliver protected information process to their patients (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). As healthcare department is the organization with vast data and essential information the hospitals has to keep a useful information security technique in their enterprise process (Mishra et al., 2011). Information security is one such phase in the healthcare sphere which is extremely problematic to describe and evaluate even to the individuals who are working on the process. In the healthcare organization, information is of many types which required for the work and even the security is a main control for almost all the practices which are transmitted out in the healthcare field (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). Hospitals, in specific, have been instructed to create a new set of security specialists to protect healthcare data tools techniques upon which exists may rely. Healthcare data is very critical for patients because it is very confidential records. If a medical apparatus is filled with a computer virus it can even exemplify a possibility to patients ' lives. Hence, hospitals should design alertness of the risk, to defend against concerns to healthcare databanks and be concerned about the high risk of infected computers or medical tools being connected to their networks (Mishra et al., 2011).