Can patients feel safe? IT systems in the healthcare sector as a target of attacks by cyber criminals.
The health service must immediately implement professional IT security solutions.
According to the current legal status, from August 1, 2017 (i.e. for a little more than a year), medical documentation will have to be kept only in an electronic company.
Although the date of entry into force of the provisions on electronic medical data of the "Act of April 28, 2011 on the information system in health care" has been postponed many times, and this may also be the case this time, we must take into account that this moment will inevitably is coming and will eventually come.
Undoubtedly, the implementation of the provisions of the Act and the ordinances of successive Health Ministers regarding electronic medical documentation imposes a gigantic and very responsible implementation task on the entire healthcare system. I really hope that the whole project will be successful. The consequence of launching electronic medical information systems will be increased requirements for the security of information systems in hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities.
There are several important places in medical information systems that can be vulnerable and vulnerable to cyber threats:
- Databases of personal data,
- Patient health databases,
- Life support systems and patient condition monitoring,
- HIS (Health Information Systems) in the medical and administrative part,
- Medical equipment,
- Other systems that may affect the implementation of key processes.
In January 2016, a spokesman for the Hospital in Ottawa reported that 4 of the nearly 10,000 computers in the hospital were attacked with software ransomware. This type of malware, after clicking on an attachment in an email, a link in an email or on a website, blocks files on the infected computer. After paying the ransom, the attack victim receives a key that enables the reopening of encrypted files. In the case of this attack, the hospital did not pay the ransom, and IT services wiped the contents of the disks and restored the data using backups. The hospital said the patient's data was not at risk.