Identifying and mitigating healthcare IT security risks

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://healthitsecurity.com/2014/08/19/identifying-and-mitigating-healthcare-it-security-risks/

By Patrick Ouellette
Health IT Security
August 19, 2014

Being proactive in healthcare IT security means picking out risks before 
incidents occur, not after the fact. But the challenge is that potential 
risks are spread across a variety of areas within a healthcare 
organization. Blair Smith, Ph.D. Dean, Informatics-Management-Technology 
(IMT) at American Sentinel University, spoke with HealthITSecurity.com 
about security considerations for healthcare organizations.

Smith was a professional IT consultant for a number of years and for the 
last 15 years was with the University of Phoenix, including the last five 
as the Dean of Information Systems prior to joining American Sentinel. 
With heavy experience in disaster recovery planning and said he always 
considered security a heavy risk area.


What are some major security risks within healthcare at the moment?

When I look at IT security for healthcare organizations, it’s not that 
much different from what many other retail or manufacturing organizations 
in that it’s a prominent topic. The key is to understand and identify 
areas of risk and potential exposure, and it’s where the HIPAA rules for 
risk assessment become very important. BYOD, for example, has its risks 
and benefits but from an industry perspective, the access to data housed 
[on the device] would be a concern.

Similarly, cloud security opens another external pathway for data to 
possibly be exposed to a number of different risks such as inappropriate 
data access and loss. As we use more mobile devices, whether it’s a smart 
phone or tablet, those types of things really present a wide range of 
issues for security personnel. And what we’re seeing today is more hackers 
and outside threats bringing exposure and risks to organizations. For 
example, there’s the subject of single sign on (SSO) and how to have 
effective security controls while maintaining convenience. The idea is to 
move beyond prevention security to proactive response technology. How do 
we quickly mitigate and take care of any exposures.

[...]

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