One in eight people in the UK have had personal聽medical information stolen in cyber-attacks from supposedly secure systems, according to research.
And current聽security frailties in the healthcare sector are only the tip of the iceberg, says Eileen Haggerty, senior director of Netscout.
Digital transformation has changed the value of patient information as we move to a data-driven economy.
But as patient medical records become currency, they also present a danger when it comes to network breaches, down time, and overall patient care.
鈥淚n an industry where business as usual means saving people鈥檚 lives, it鈥檚 not enough to be purely reactive to issues on the network as and when they arise,鈥� said Haggerty.
鈥淸Stolen information] contains sensitive information that can endanger an individual. If these are accessed, altered, or deleted it can mean gravely serious consequences.鈥�
Heading up Netscout鈥檚 Enterprise 老九品茶 Organization, which focuses on the healthcare market, she believes medical records need an added 鈥榣ayer鈥� of security compared with other stored data.
Haggerty added: 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 protect what you can鈥檛 see.聽 The first step in protecting patient data is visibility.
鈥淚t is vital to take a proactive, or even a preventative, approach to monitor and analyse traffic at critical points throughout the wired and wireless healthcare environment.
鈥淭his will provide visibility before, during and after disruptions occur, enable rapid response with the details necessary to isolate and resolve.
鈥淪econd step in protecting patient data is to ensure superior analytics are available.
鈥淎nother important component of this is to ensure the analysis is complete.
“This will mean being able to recognize the many services in a healthcare environment from the unique services they depend鈥� so when something nefarious is added, it is easier to identify.鈥�
Last week, the NHS was hit by a global cyberattack described as the biggest ransomware outbreak in history by Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Helsinki-based cybersecurity company F-Secure.
鈥淩ansomware is certainly the most widely publicized problem today for a hospital,鈥� said Haggerty.
鈥淲ith the advent of connected devices and the IoT, smart beds, monitors, even dialysis machines have the potential to be hacked, meaning potential DDoS attacks on hospital, resulting in critical problems for that organisation.
鈥淭his is a business where success is measured in lives saved, so the problems that such unsecured systems pose are more important than many other industry areas.
鈥淗owever, a way to combat this is having a tool that allows complete, in depth and real time analysis of every layer of your network, including connected devices and network layers, wired and wireless environments. Any anomalous traffic can then be examined and dealt with before, rather than as, it becomes a problem.
鈥淗ealthcare technology, in its current form, is prevention rather than the cure. It鈥檚 got the potential to address the issues faced by the NHS by making it quicker, easier, and safer to treat patients.
鈥淏ut it can鈥檛 happen without the NHS, and all other healthcare organisations, learning to take the pulse of the IT networks that power the applications and services they鈥檝e come to rely upon.鈥�
鈥淪ecurity is a vital concern. These networks cannot be breached as they hold incredible amounts of sensitive information.
鈥淭he network can鈥檛 be allowed to suffer performance issues either. Otherwise those same applications that doctors and nurses have come to rely upon won鈥檛 function like they should.鈥�
Netscout is a global market leader for business assurance provisions, which is a combination of service assurance, cybersecurity and business intelligence solutions.