Why Cyber Security in Healthcare Industry?

With the new threat landscape in cyber security and prominence of Healthcare Industries during the Pandemic Situation, a constant search by the unethical hackers community to steal the valuable R&D Data is on the rise. It is evident that more and more health care industries and their allies are constantly making progress with new formulas by research and development to fight against the pandemic and in future. Similarly the Global unethical hackers community have improvised the way and techniques of attack to penetrate and collect all the valuable research data. Not only to the Health Care research group, the hacker community has a constant vigil on the health care production firm and especially on their OT – Operational Networks. 

With IoT helping such organisations to control and monitor their production plant and quality analysis as part of the automation process, an even more sophisticated and elevated attack is seen in recent days.

With constant advancement in the way of cyber-attack (i.e.) file less Malware attack makes it even more difficult for the Health Care industries to stay protected from cyber hackers.

Need of the hour for Cyber Security in Healthcare Industry!!! Where they need to focus on building Cyber Security Controls!!

Cyber Compliance: Whether you process Patient Health Information as part of Research and Development for any clinical trial or administering medical support to individuals or producing drugs for unknown or known disease, the organisation must protect Personal Identifiable Information whether it is sensitive or non-sensitive. To achieve this, the organisation must have proper classification of Information to begin with.

1. First and foremost is to conduct a Risk Assessment on your organisation Cyber security control effectiveness?  This should include your entire Infrastructure from R&D labs till the end point of the operations chain. Do not limit the assessment to a few areas of the operations, include the assessment both process wise and technical wise to have a clear understanding of where and what control’s need tweaking and where controls have no effect. 
2. Identify how frequently you should perform the assessment. Your Risk Assessment score would be the indicator for this exercise. If the Risk score indicates too many parameters of cyber security control ineffectiveness, time for a much rigor approach of frequent assessment cycle and appropriate remediation approach.
3. Either HIPAA or HI-TRUST Compliance requirements, and if you happen to engage a covered entity or Business associates, include them in the Risk Assessment process to have a holistic approach of Cyber Défense mechanism.
4. Evaluate your vendors and service provider cyber security controls. Include them in the organisation’s overall risk register. 
5. Include Professional Cyber Security Services as required. Monitor your environment. Perform Predictive Analysis, include cyber Security Posture Metric Dashboard as default service.
6. Create an impact. Promote awareness amongst your employees, consultants and contractors. Let it be periodic and not just one time effort. Allocate Budget exclusive for Cyber Security Services and not part of IT. 
7. Include OT and IoT network Security Controls as part of the high priority Gap Analysis Plan. 
8. Include Business Continuity Service. Evaluate impact of disruption on business service due to Cyber Security Events and Incidence. Implement Incidence and Crisis response plan.
9. Inspect your Security Layer Baseline periodically. Implement Security Hardening Standards across the organisation. Increase the maturity level periodically. Move from Level 0 and above till you reach the optimum business cyber security standard for your organisation and its operations.
10. Cyber defence is key, for which you need analytical data. Implement Security Monitoring and Incident Response and Remedial Process. Engage the key stakeholders as constant vigil (hawk eye). Include professional service coverage to get the best of both worlds (Business domain experience and Cyber Security professionals).

To prevent cyber attacks, start by creating cyber security in healthcare organisations and address the vulnerabilities inside the digital infrastructure. Theft of information has far-reaching impacts, making cyber security a top priority for any healthcare organisation.

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