The government’s push for threat sharing and collaboration, with the uptick in alerts directed to the healthcare sector, are a welcomed shift in the longstanding efforts to curtail cybersecurity challenges with overall awareness and cyber posture in the industry.
But awareness doesn’t always translate into a viable solution, particularly when it comes to tackling the minutiae of medical devices. Due to the sheer complexity of the device ecosystem, resource constraints, and knowledge gaps, even the largest health systems struggle to solve the risk management challenges.
“I think medical devices and biomed in general… are really kind of the redheaded-stepchild of healthcare organizations because they’re complex, and nobody really knows how to deal with them,” said Ben Denkers, CynergisTek’s chief innovation officer.
Consider the FBI alert on legacy medical devices, which resounded the bullhorn on risks associated with leveraging legacy tech in devices directly tied to patients. For many in healthcare, the messages rang familiar: groups like CHIME have long-warned of patch management issues and the impossibility of a real-time inventory in the healthcare environment….
