IoT Security Incidents Increase as Healthcare Leans into Connected Health

Connected health enables quality care by means of telehealth, remote patient monitoring tools, wearable technology, and other digital tools, but it also presents the risk of IoT security incidents. Over 80 percent of healthcare organizations reported facing IoT security incidents in the past 18 months, a recent white paper from Medigate and CrowdStrike discovered.

As connected health adoption increases, healthcare organizations will be tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that technological innovations are considered from a cybersecurity perspective as well as a clinical perspective.

IoT devices can revolutionize patient care, but they also provide an expanded attack surface for bad actors, the white paper explained. Healthcare organizations are already disproportionately targeted by bad actors.

“Although dark web pricing varies, a health care record is typically valued 50 times more than a stolen credit card,” the white paper stated.

“Not only is personal health information (PHI) worth more, but there are more ways to monetize it, including ransoms, fraudulent medication prescriptions and phony claims for medical treatment.”

Researchers found that spending on medical devices is projected to increase at a CAGR of 29.5 percent through 2028. However, IoT device cyberattacks are increasing, pointing to a need to invest in security measures for those IoT devices at the same rate.

“While healthcare spending on cybersecurity is increasing, it is important to note that [healthcare organizations] have already made significant long-term investments in their security infrastructures,” the paper noted.

“However, it's no secret that connected asset visibility has been especially poor in healthcare, and as a result, essential security enforcement systems have not been able to perform at required levels. The performance of existing infrastructure can be dramatically improved by addressing these long-standing data deficits and integrating capabilities that directly deal with the realities of modern threats.”

The white paper recommended that organizations implement defense strategies such as endpoint detection and response (EDR), orchestrated visibility, network segmentation, and effective insurance coverage. EDR allows organizations to continually monitor threats from all angles.

“EDR is a foundational capability, especially as care delivery continues to fragment,” researchers pointed out. “Connected health requires security practices that adapt to care delivery, regardless of where it executes, and not the other way around. Security must enable, not constrain.”

With continually advancing technologies expanding the attack surface and scope for ransomware actors, healthcare organizations “cannot afford to accept the tradeoffs typical of inferior and/or legacy solutions,” the paper suggested. “The state-of-the-art is the minimum requirement.”

Organizations should implement an attack containment strategy that minimizes damage and lowers potential recovery costs. In addition, the paper recommended that healthcare organizations consider investing in cyber insurance to further mitigate risk.

“To safely scale the delivery of connected health, security and asset management practices must converge,” researchers concluded.

“It’s the only way that individual contributions of limited healthcare staff and systems can become greater than the sum of their respective roles and parts. A common reference foundation must be created, not only to modernize existing infrastructure where possible, but to ensure the performance of future investments in layered capabilities.”