Government Information Security Podcast

Healthcare sector organizations often still struggle to implement security frameworks effectively, often not fully understanding the requirements or failing to integrate them into their overall cybersecurity strategy, said Keith Forrester of security firm Optiv, who offers tips to help.

Robotic medical devices, such as surgical gear, offer great potential to improve patient care, but the cyber risks associated with these products must be carefully addressed, said Kevin Fu, director of the Archimedes Center for Health Care and Medical Device Cybersecurity at Northeastern University.

Besides not doing cyberthreat modeling at all, some the biggest mistakes medical device manufacturers can make are starting the modeling process too late in the development phase or using it simply as a "paper weight exercise," said threat modeling expert Adam Shostack of Shostack & Associates.

Healthcare entities can easily achieve many of the cyber performance goals set by regulators if they deploy technology solutions that provide robust security by default and create an organizational culture in which security-mindedness is ingrained, said Taylor Lehmann of Google Cloud.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's updated Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 can help healthcare organizations better formalize their governance functions to enhance their cybersecurity posture and resilience, said Robert Booker, chief strategy officer at HITRUST.

AI is on the way to embedding itself in our daily lives. CISO Sam Curry and his brother, CMO Red Curry, discuss what generative AI means for copyrights and plagiarism, the "AI bubble," and whether governing AI-derived speech will wind up limiting free speech.

The many kinds of OT and IoT gear that are not regulated medical devices but are critical to run hospitals and other care facilities present a variety of cybersecurity and patient safety concerns, said Dr. Benoit Desjardins, professor of radiology at the University of Pennsylvania Medicine.

In the aftermath of a ransomware attack several years ago, Hackensack Meridian Health embarked on transforming its cybersecurity program with the support of top leadership and increased funding and staff and by implementing critical security tools and best practices, said CISO Mark Johnson.

Healthcare organizations and makers of medical devices need to think about how to safeguard their critical medical gear against future cyberthreats, including the looming dangers posed by quantum computing, said Mike Nelson, global vice president of digital trust at security firm DigiCert.

The U.S. healthcare sector needs to closely watch government regulatory and legislative developments involving artificial intelligence, including the European Union AI Act, said Lee Kim, senior principal of cybersecurity and privacy at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.

It's critical for hospitals and other firms to not only prepare for how they will respond to a cyberattack but also to consider the regional impact if a neighboring provider of services needed in the community is disrupted by a serious cyber incident, said Margie Zuk of Mitre.

Healthcare sector organizations need to focus their attention on meeting the "voluntary" essential and enhanced cybersecurity performance goals set out by federal regulators before they become potential mandates, said Kate Pierce, virtual information security officer at Fortified Heath Security.

The vast healthcare ecosystem disruption caused by the recent attack on Change Healthcare, which affected more than 100 of the company's IT products and services, underscores the concentrated cyber risk when a major vendor suffers a serious cyber incident, said Keith Fricke, partner at tw-Security.

The healthcare sector needs a 911-style cyber civil defense system that can help all segments of the industry, including under-resourced groups, to more rapidly and effectively respond to cyberattacks and related incidents, said Erik Decker, CISO of Intermountain Health and a federal cyber adviser.

The Department of Health and Human Services is working on grant programs and other financial programs to help under-resourced healthcare organizations deal with the cybersecurity challenges they're facing, said La Monte Yarborough, CISO and acting deputy CIO at HHS.

The Change Healthcare attack is already providing valuable lessons to healthcare firms - mostly about the importance of resilience, especially when it comes the industry's supply chain and third parties, said Nitin Natarajan, deputy director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Leaders in cybersecurity - and in any other business - need to keep a bank account filled with the trust and respect of their employees and make sure that account stays in the black, said Chase Cunningham, aka the Doctor of Zero Trust. He discussed his new book on how to be a good leader.

The Change Healthcare mega hack has taken nearly 120 of the company's IT products and services offline since Feb. 21, and that cyber disruption is having serious, widespread impact on the entire healthcare industry including major players, said attorney Sara Goldstein of the law firm BakerHostetler.

Your supply chain is your new attack surface, according to Galit Lubetzky Sharon, the co-founder and CEO of Wing Security. She discusses Wing's solution - Secure SaaS Posture Management, or SSPM - that helps organizations ensure that all of their SaaS apps are safe and compliant.

CISO Sam Curry and CMO Red Curry discuss the chaos and disruption of cyberwar and how attacks on critical infrastructure can tactically help attackers in combat, demoralize the general population and affect critical capabilities at just the right point in time.