Healthcare Device Security Challenges Formidable
Traditional IT cybersecurity solutions lack visibility into all systems and devices connected to the network and use detection as a defensive perimeter, which doesn’t protect from breaches and lateral movement of bad actors throughout the network.
WootCloud insights show around 70% of devices around customer facilities or campuses are unmanaged by corporate IT.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights’ breach portal shows 686 healthcare data breaches of 500 or more records in 2021. As healthcare records are worth 25 times as much as a credit card, and the source of 95% of all identity theft, it is not hard to see why.
Consider the following healthcare industry insights:
- Hospitals can have as many as 15 to 20 networked devices per bed.
- Large hospitals can have as many as 85,000 non-IT medical devices.
- 93% of healthcare organizations experienced a data breach, while 57% of healthcare organizations have had more than five breaches in 2021.
- Technology consultancy Gartner predicts that by 2023, the average CIO will be responsible for more than three times the number of endpoints they managed in 2018 and that most healthcare CIOs and CISOs lack an up-to-date, complete and accurate inventory of the devices in their systems.
Specific Recommendations for IOMT Security Professionals
As any connected device can potentially act as a gateway to other devices or entire networks, organizations must pressure device manufacturers, vendors, and implementers to design security into the earliest stage of device development and perform continuous validation throughout the product life cycle.
Additionally at the corporate network level, both wired and wireless providers should take steps to conduct proper risk assessments alongside the organizations IT and Security teams to build defenses that identify, detect, and remediate threats within the network and document. These need to be tested in incident response plans on a regular basis.
Finally, raising awareness of cyber risks is a major component of securing healthcare IoT.
A 2018 report on healthcare device security revealed that 41% of IoMT-related security incidents were caused by bad user practice.
Both device manufacturers themselves and the healthcare organizations they sell to need to educate all staffers, first responders, contracts and partners, patients and their families etc who are tapping into IOMT on cybersecurity risks and best practices.
As healthcare deals with all facets of critical data – health related, PII-related, and financial related, the industry has high standards for enforement.
As you know the critical mission of healthcare necessitates a very robust network and the devices connected to it with ultra-high connectivity and reliability.
And with 15-20 devices per patient, multiple wireless devices need to operate and communicate while in close proximity to other devices.
WootCloud Helps Detect Attacks Against Healthcare Organizations at Moment of Intrusion, During Intrusion, and at Time of Attack and Exfiltration
It is critical to monitor, alert, and defend against breaches into your network, persistence of intruders traveling through your network, and exfiltration attempts as intruders steal your data and IP.
Once an attacker gains access, then they must perform a certain number of steps to achieve their goal, which is typically to access and steal, manipulate or destroy data. Rarely, will an attacker “land” on the device with the desired data or be the sole resource to carryout their objective. So the attacker must perform many different actions, including probing the network, stealing or cracking credentials, accessing sensitive servers or applications, and locating and exfiltrating data.
These activities create inherent opportunities for attackers:
- Attacks Create Anomalous Network + Device activity
- A Behavioral Baseline Specific to the Network (and not Static) can help isolate unusual activity.
- A Behavioral Anomaly indicative of attack can help security analysts quickly pinpoint and root out attackers.
Business Value
Our mission, like yours, is to provide your employees, students, faculty and more with a safe, user-friendly and secure environment by:
- Giving Full visibility – with RF and Network sensors seeing 100% of your devices and infrastructure encompassing all stages of attack – infiltration, persistence, and exfiltration
- Reducing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR )– with AI/ML-powered, automated remediation that drives >70% reduction in threat hunting times
- Boosting User Experience – by reducing support ticket volumes, lowering alert noise for a >60% gain in operational efficiency (~1.4 FTE Service Savings per site/ per shift)
Each of these benefits on their own can offer 5-6 figure USD savings per year, shortening the payback period on your investment.
The perfect cybersecurity storm has arrived. Consider intelligent device and infrastructure security today.
To learn more in a zero touch, no obligation Demo or POC, please contact us.