Does Better Care At Hospitals Come with a Security Risk?

Hospitals are living, breathing and fluid environments that see hundreds if not thousands of visitors each day. Today, the devices that keep these buildings running are more connected than ever, which allows for an exceptional level of care but brings tremendous risks at the same time.

Cybersecurity in hospitals is a complex issue that has left the medical world particularly vulnerable to hackers and digital adversaries who seek personal health records, bank accounts and more.

Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, Justin Cappos, has spent years analyzing cybersecurity and notes that hospitals are particularly susceptible to cyber-attacks. He points out that a lack of uniformity among devices in hospitals contributes to the difficulty of securing the entire building and its data, among other issues.

“It’s not the case that you can just go and get a completely integrated, whole hospital-wide solution that has a unified security posture and has everything set up in a very easy way,” Cappos said.

The information that can be extracted from hospitals by hackers is extremely sensitive and valuable, but accountability on the security of this content is something still being addressed by hospitals, technology manufacturers and the federal government, but to date no sweeping changes have been made.

To see how cybersecurity is changing industries across the world, visit our healthcare and software & technology industry pages.