Importance of basic cybersecurity hygiene and awareness
Long gone are the days where the concept of IT and cybersecurity were wholly the domain of engineers or computer experts. Indeed, the prevalence of cyber threats dictates a wider understanding of digital security. It’s crept into various spaces, but most notably the healthcare market, meaning clinicians, nurses and even doctors require a modicum of cybersecurity awareness.
Does this mean healthcare professionals must graduate to a platform of cybersecurity expertise? Thankfully, no. However, to neglect this essential field puts a practice in unnecessary risk. There are simply too many threats in the digital wild to ignore, and the medical industry is an ideal target for threat actors thanks to the valuable, personal data of patients.
More so, avoiding regulatory penalties, maintaining patient trust, and keeping your practice in one piece are additional reasons to start considering cybersecurity awareness and all that it entails. Though, like a lot of things, easier said than done.
Challenges
The demands faced within the medical world are challenging enough as is. With strain caused by the COVID pandemic, increasing paperwork, reduced staff, lack of resources, and legacy infrastructure, one of the last things on a clinician’s mind is cybersecurity. After all, it should just “work,” right? However, nothing is that simple, especially not complications adjacent to cybersecurity.
Therefore, one of the critical challenges regarding healthcare digital safety is clear, digestible solutions that clinicians can absorb within the fuss of their usual work. You can’t just hand a medical worker a blurb about zero-trust policies or “how to easily spot phishing scams,” such info needs to be snappy and easy to process.
How do you do that? It’s specific to each practice, since they all possess unique infrastructure. For example, a BDR (backup disaster recovery) contingency plan for a hospital won’t have the same effectiveness for say, a smaller primary caretaker practice. Also consider the volume of alerts and messages healthcare professionals receive at any given moment. In that deluge of text and pings intermixed with patient related alerts, keeping up proves challenging. Therefore, providing a clear, understandable message that highlights cybersecurity can yield powerful, seamless results.
New tech, but more vulnerabilities
Complicating matters is the expansion of healthcare devices within the industry. Trends point to a steady shift towards wearables and remote monitoring devices. That leads to additional “attack surfaces,” an IT phrase meaning internet facing devices are a potential intrusion point for threat actors. Think of a network like a building with one door that’s easy to secure with locks. More devices are like adding numerous windows, each needing their own locks.
And, not all wearables are not the same or have the same security standards. Vendor specific devices can vary based on hardware, and they typically need routine updating to protect them from exploits.
So, healthcare workers have a lot to consider, and an ingrained sense of awareness with good cybersecurity hygiene is important.
Getting the message across
We could go on and on about the myriad of digital threats engulfing the healthcare industry. It’s no secret medical networks routinely fall victim to ransomware schemes and suffer from shortcomings within the cybersecurity sector. Therefore, it’s important to consider streamlining cybersecurity cohesion within your medical practice and/or hospital network.
It’s important to drive home the genuine importance of good cyber hygiene, while slowly implementing policies that run adjacent to a professional’s work. In other words, finding cybersecurity strategies that naturally compliment tasks. Such as with our example of a clinician receiving alerts on a frequent basis – implementing, say a “zero trust policy” not only enforces a type of cybersecurity role, but fits that type of work.
It’s also important to emphasize that expert knowledge is not required. Despite the seemingly overwhelming nature of IT and cyber threats, it does not need master knowledge to resolve or avoid threats. The message should never be about despair, only optimism in a chosen strategy. Yes, there are situations where only expert knowledge will apply – but think of it this way: you don’t need to be a doctor to practice healthy habits, just routine and common sense.
Dragon Medical One and cyber safety awareness
We look at the big picture of devices and tools and see a lot of weak points, fault lines threat actors are eager to exploit. So, nurses, clinicians, and doctors naturally want their IT infrastructure to “just work.” Dragon Medical One fits neatly into this, because it’s right in line not only with regulatory mandates such as HIPAA, but avoids the pitfalls of other weaker services and/or devices.
For example, remember that attackers seek data. Patient information is incredibly value because it’s deeply personal, as you know, containing everything from medical conditions to home addresses. Where that info is stored is what attackers seek to breakthrough – again, unsecured wearables, devices, and internet facing machines.
But Dragon Medical One does not store this data, only “writes” it based on spoken dictation. Therefore, there’s nothing for threat actors to steal. And, even on the off-chance hackers did compromise the app (something that isn’t feasibly possible), it’s more akin to stealing a box, not the contents of the box. Given that you’re recording important patient data, it’s precisely the thing you don’t want malicious third parties getting a hold of.
Because of this, Dragon Medical One is a HIPAA-compliant platform, and aids healthcare practitioners in their efforts to keep aware of cybersecurity basics and threats.
What else can I do?
This gets more into establishing cybersecurity policies, which is governed by a practice’s respective chief security officer. However, there are some foundational basics, such as:
- Recognizing phishing and common tactics targeting healthcare networks
- Having a “go to” strategy for backup and disaster responses
- Practicing zero-trust and understanding the network layout of a healthcare practice
As threats change, so too must the healthcare industry.
