The growing threat to the healthcare IoT sector

IoT technology has changed the game for healthcare providers seeking to reduce costs and improve delivery of patient care. The advances are promising, and the medical IoT market is set to explode. At the same time, there is a growing threat to the healthcare sector to come under cyber-attacks, with the implementation of IoT. These are usually connected with medical devices like MRI and X-ray equipment, typically obtained from third-party sources.

Since, these medical devices aren’t built with security as a priority, they are vulnerable to cyber attacks that try to access their sensitive data. Healthcare institutions are targeted by cyber attackers for many reasons.

One is that they safeguard and hold large amounts of sensitive data, including intellectual property such as vaccine research. They also contain identifiable information like medical and insurance details to be sold on the black market. In recent years, India has seen IoT adoption in education, governance, and financial services. The technology has also enabled doctors to see and interact with patients in remote telemedicine centers – with the case history and medical data automatically transmitted to the doctor for analysis. India has an acute shortage of doctors which impacts both the quality and reach of healthcare services in rural and urban centers.

A report says, a digital platform powered by advanced digital technologies can enable continuous remote patient monitoring and reporting, allowing hospitals to extend care to more people, and reduce the burden on healthcare infrastructure. However, most of these IoT devices are hackable, and introduce cybersecurity risks that could negatively impact patient care and the bottom line.

Hence, the need for operational technology (OT) security is changing as more and more of these environments are being connected to enterprise networks and exposed to threats on the internet. While this online connection makes data gathering and remote management of the OT environment easier, they also provide attackers with entry points. Meanwhile, IoT-specific security solutions do not require agents, effectively securing all connected devices regardless of whether they are IT, OT and IoT devices.

This is important because attackers generally see all connected devices as part of a single system. A siloed security system that sees only one of these environments cannot keep OT systems secure. This is why securities technology worked to develop and improve simplified solutions with a multi-faceted approach to mitigate risks.

Deepak Sahu, President & CEO, VARINDIA