Cyber Threats To Healthcare Systems, Medical Devices Rising

Compared to other industries, healthcare is particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks with the threats to health information continuing to mount as the industry moves to adopt electronic health records. Earlier this month, the FBI's Cyber Division issued a notice warning that healthcare systems and medical devices are at risk for increased cyber intrusions for financial gain.

"Cyber actors will likely increase cyber intrusions against healthcare systems--to include medical devices--due to mandatory transition from paper to electronic health records, lax cybersecurity standards, and a higher financial payout for medical records in the black market," according to the FBI. "The deadline to transition to EHR is January 2015, which will create an influx of new EHR coupled with more medical devices being connected to the Internet, generating a rich new environment for cyber criminals to exploit."

The law enforcement agency goes on to say that the healthcare industry "is not technically prepared to combat against cyber criminals’ basic cyber intrusion tactics, techniques and procedures, much less against more advanced persistent threats" and "is not as resilient to cyber intrusions compared to the financial and retail sectors, therefore the possibility of increased cyber intrusions is likely."...