The possibility of such an attack has led to the recall of many devices over lack of or inefficient security measures.

How to stop them
Part of the reason that providers are vulnerable to cyberattacks is due to the present mindset of focusing on past experiences rather than thinking about ones that have yet to occur, according to Whitfill.



“We focus on untargeted attacks that are very much not sophisticated,” he said. “We’re very much fighting the last war, focusing on attacks from three years ago, five years ago. We need to be focused on what these people are planning next week and next month. We tend to be very shortsighted as physicians.”

Kevin McDonald, director of clinical information security in the office of information security at Mayo Clinic, says there are many flaws in security operations that can lead to breaches, including the presence of default passwords, application issues such as the inability to run anti-virus ware, not applying upgrades to old systems, poor management of support panels and lack of effective encryptions.

His suggestions for providers is to have a comprehensive security program internally with standards and minimum requirements. He encourages the evaluation of new purchases during the buying process and to work in conjunction with health technology managers, vendors and stakeholders in assessing the security of medical devices. He also advises that administration staff be trained on security protocols as well as report incidents and document accountability.

“The thing that you need to do with all of these is push that security to the front of the device decision-making process,” he said.

However, Whitfill says that one of the main reasons imaging departments fall victim to such attacks has to do with the attitude of radiologists.

“Radiologists say we don’t have to worry about this because we treat our information differently from everyone else,” he said. “I don’t think that’s the case. It’s clear that there are many examples for those of us in radiology [where] we are just as guilty, we’re just as human as everybody else.”

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