The following is a guest article by Vinugayathri Chinnasamy from Indusface.
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is revolutionizing the healthcare industry by creating a connected infrastructure of medical systems and services that are helping enhance patient outcomes. But they come with newer security risks too. 63% of healthcare organizations in 2019 faced security incidents owing to the insecure and unmanaged Internet of Medical Things. Given the increasing costs of data breaches, IoT security in healthcare is indispensable.
Continue reading to find out more about IoMT and powerful insights on securing the Internet of Medical Things.
What is IoMT?
The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is the amalgamation of medical devices and applications that use networking technologies to connect to healthcare IT systems. The IoT in healthcare is helping improve patient outcomes and enhancing patient experiences, optimizing costs, enabling quicker, more accurate diagnosis, enabling effective remote monitoring of chronic diseases, and bettering drug management, among others.
Why is IoT Security in Healthcare Necessary?
Today, a hospital has an average of 15-20 medical devices such as smart beds, ventilators, insulin pumps, IV pumps, etc. If any of these devices have vulnerabilities or security weaknesses such as unpatched software or outdated OS, attackers can easily breach them and access the connected devices.
Attackers could weaponize these devices and cause harm to patients. Or they could orchestrate a ransomware attack to extort huge sums of money from healthcare organizations. Given the criticality of these devices to patient safety and life, organizations may end up paying the ransom.
Healthcare organizations collect, store, and transmit a large volume of sensitive patient data using these connected devices. So, unprotected Internet of Medical Things pose a threat to data security and attracts huge penalties if a breach occurs.
10 Effective Ways to Secure the Internet of Medical Things
1. Maintain an Updated Inventory of Assets
One of the main problems with IoMT security is that organizations do not know what devices they have, who owns them, or their location or uses since IoMT is mostly unmanaged. This creates a major blind spot for healthcare organizations. By maintaining an updated asset inventory, this problem can be solved. Through a combination of intelligent scanning tools and regular pen-testing, organizations can continuously update their asset inventory, including hardware, software, firmware, devices, systems, third-party components, and so on.
2. Deploy a Zero Trust Architecture
A zero-trust architecture insists that trust must not be implicit but continuously evaluated. Given how lucrative healthcare data is in the black market, healthcare organizations must deploy a zero-trust architecture. To this end, they must deploy multi-factor authentication to prevent rogue devices and attackers from connecting to the network. They must implement granular role-based permission to prevent unauthorized access to data not required for a particular set of users.
3. Strictly Enforce a Strong Password Policy
Most Internet of Medical Things is left with default usernames and passwords. And this has deadly consequences for healthcare organizations as they are left open to a whole range of attacks. So, they must strictly enforce a strong password policy. Healthcare organizations must create new, unique, and strong passwords when adding IoMT devices to the network.
4. Updates Shouldn’t Be Missed
From MRI machines to wearables, outdated IoMT devices are causes for concern. Updates for software, OS, and firmware come with critical security patches to fix known weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and gaps. When updates are missed, healthcare organizations provide easy entry points to attackers. Organizations must create a schedule and prioritize the updates for critical IoMT devices to minimize risks.
5. Virtual Patching
It is also possible that the vendor does not release updates for a particular software/ component. While it is ideal for removing such outdated components, it is not always possible as critical equipment and devices may be using it. In such cases, the organizations can rely on virtual patching and/or isolating the component from the network to minimize security risks.
6. Actively Monitor IoMT Devices
It is not enough to know what assets exist to strengthen healthcare IoT security. Healthcare organizations must actively monitor IoMT devices in real-time, analyze behavior patterns, flag and alert the security team about anomalies and maintain detailed reports.
7. Segment Network
Healthcare organizations must logically segment their network into different zones with customized security and access control policies based on the devices. For instance, network exposure can be minimized for critical vulnerable devices by segmenting them from other devices and areas of the network.
8. Closely Monitor Traffic
Granular monitoring and analysis of incoming traffic are imperative. No requests must reach the server without validation and analysis. Malicious requests and bad bots must be blocked from accessing the network or devices. This helps prevent DDoS attacks and other attacks or minimize their impact—leverage a next-gen WAF like AppTrana for the same.
9. Configure Everything
Do not leave any IoT device or system unconfigured as it creates vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit. So, assume everything needs configuring and do the needful. For instance, disable features that aren’t necessary.
10. Use End-to-End Encryption
Regardless of whether it is in transit or at rest, data must be encrypted. This helps prevent eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle attacks, and phishing attacks, among others.
Conclusion
Given the criticality of securing the Internet of Medical Things today, leverage a cloud-based, intelligent, comprehensive security solution to secure your IoMT devices effectively.
About Vinugayathri Chinnasamy
Vinugayathri Chinnasamy is the Senior Content Writer at Indusface, a leading SaaS company, which secures critical Web applications of 3000+ global customers using its award-winning platform that integrates Web Application Scanner, Web Application Firewall, CDN, API Protection, Bot Mitigation, and threat information engine.
