FDA Wants Hospitals To Prepare Devices For Cyber Attacks

Hospital IT departments, prepare yourself to address a new security hole. The FDA has issued a safety communication warning hospitals, medical device manufacturers, healthcare  IT and procurement staff and biomedical engineers to beef up the security protecting medical devices from cyber attack.

According to Healthcare IT Newsthe FDA warns that the attacks could be kicked off by the introduction of malware into the medical equipment, or unauthorized access to configuration settings in medical devices and hospital networks.

According to the magazine, the FDA had this to say about the nature of the emerging risks:

“Many medical devices contain configurable embedded computer systems that can be vulnerable to cybersecurity breaches. In addition, as medical devices are increasingly interconnected, via the Internet, hospital networks, other medical device and smartphones, there is an increased risk of cybersecurity breaches, which could affect how a medical device operates.”

The FDA has become aware of several types of cybersecurity vulnerabilities that could hit medical devices or hospital network operations, such as:

* When malware infects or disables network-connected or configured  medical devices
* When malware on hospital network-connected devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets targets mobile devices using wireless technology to access patient data, monitoring systems, and implanted patient devices
* Failure to provide timely security software updates and patches to medical devices and networks and to address related vulnerabilities in older medical device models

To date, the FDA has not become aware of any patient injuries or deaths associated with these cyber attacks, nor does the agency have any reason to believe that specific systems or devices currently in clinical use have been purposely targeted, Healthcare IT News reports.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

   

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