TRIMEDX President of Cybersecurity and Chief Technology Officer Doug Folsom was quoted in this recent 24×7 Magazine article on protecting connected medical devices against cyber threats.
The impact of failing to safeguard medical devices and system-wide networks before a hacker unleashes an attack on a healthcare facility cannot be overstated. A security breach that leads to stolen patient records is bad. But a ransomware attack that suspends the use of a healthcare facility’s systems, including essential equipment and electronic records containing vital information, immediately puts patients’ lives at risk. Once that’s happened, you’re limited in what you can do, essentially at the mercy of the cybercriminals who launched the attack.
“Who has responsibility for medical device security can be a murky area,” Folsom explains. “For years, clinical engineering (CE) managed medical equipment and IT managed the hospital’s network. But the lines blurred once we connected medical equipment to the network.”