Langate CTO, SaaS Consultant. We help Enterprise SaaS optimize its progression costs.
The importance of physically powerful cybersecurity measures cannot be underestimated at a time when physical care depends on virtual technologies. The immediate rise of electronic physical activity record (EHR) systems, telemedicine platforms, and interconnected medical devices has opened up new frontiers in patient care. However, it has also exposed the fitnesscare industry to unprecedented cybersecurity threats.
As healthcare organizations adopt traditional software technology to meet specific operational needs, they will need to prioritize cybersecurity to protect patient data and ensure the integrity of healthcare systems.
Health data has become the primary target of cybercriminals due to its sensitive nature and potential for monetary gain. Health data breaches claim an average of $9. 23 million per incident. With that in mind, below are some best practices for moving towards cybersecurity in the healthcare sector. industry.
Until AI takes over the entire procedure of creating new software, your team will continue to be the source of all bugs and bugs. Developers tend to focus on interesting tasks, neglecting the “boring” facets of secure code. In addition, new team members may simply not be aware of the responsibility they take when working with PHI information.
There are smart teams on the market, such as KnowBe4 and TitanHQ, as well as many other consulting companies, that can provide the necessary training. (Disclosure: our company is a visitor of KnowBe4).
Ensure that the software complies with health regulations, such as HIPAA, regarding patient confidentiality and privacy.
Continuous integration and uninterrupted delivery/deployment (CI/CD) security is about implementing automated checks and tests in code pipelines to protect software delivery against vulnerabilities. These checks can include code vulnerability checks, security misconfigurations, compliance violations, and other security issues.
It is vital for healthcare organizations to implement end-to-end encryption across all communication channels, ensuring that patient knowledge remains protected from unauthorized access. This is very important to protect sensitive data, both in exchanges between healthcare professionals and when it is stored in EHRs.
The items discussed above are some of the most important, but this list can be expanded. In addition, we must keep in mind that new security threats are constantly emerging. Here are some other techniques that require attention:
• Keep third-party libraries and dependencies up-to-date to address known security vulnerabilities.
• Follow secure coding criteria and rules for your programming language and framework. This includes the OWASP Top 10 task and rules from organizations such as CERT.
• Always validate and erase entered data to avoid common attacks, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and command injection.
• Implement CSRF hedging mechanisms, such as anti-CSRF tokens, to prevent attackers from making moves on behalf of authenticated users.
• Use built-in input validation libraries and validation purposes when available.
• Encode egress knowledge to prevent attacks XSS. La HTML, XML, and URL coding are not unusual techniques.
• Always have multi-factor authentication (MFA) in place by default.
• Ensure that query cookies are sent to the consumer with the HttpOnly and Secure attributes.
• Set appropriate security headers on HTTP responses, adding Content Security Policy (CSP), X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, and X-XSS-Protection.
• Implement correct error handling to expose sensitive data in error messages.
• Record errors securely and do not save sensitive data such as passwords, user details, or PHI.
• Perform normal code reviews with a security focus.
Cybersecurity considerations play out every day. It’s not unusual to see healthcare organizations suffering from cyberattacks on the front pages of headlines. Tri-City Medical Center Hospital, for example, was targeted through INC Ransom Group in 2023. This led them to divert patients from the emergency room to other facilities, disrupting the facility for at least five days.
These considerations also make telemedicine more important, especially since this practice has increased during the pandemic. Ransomware not only compromises patient data, but it can also be deadly, as evidenced by an incident that occurred in Germany in 2020. The diversion of a patient to a more remote hospital due to a ransomware attack would have possibly resulted in the first known death caused by a hack.
These incidents highlight the vulnerability of critical infrastructure and cause organizations to prioritize cybersecurity. This is imperative, not only for patient data, but also to save lives.
As cyber threats continue to rise, the importance of physically powerful cybersecurity measures in the healthcare industry cannot be underestimated. Although traditional software is helping healthcare organizations tailor their systems to their expressed wishes and proactively meet cybersecurity challenges, organizations will have to stay vigilant in terms of cybersecurity. By implementing the best practices defined in this article, healthcare organizations can improve the eHealth of their traditional software and ensure a safer future for all stakeholders.
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