vendor management
Managing third-party vendors should also be part of a healthcare organization's overall cybersecurity strategy, Rapple added. She points out that while growth requires leveraging the services of vendors, those partnerships come with their own risks.
“The impact of risk is magnified as we rely on third-party services to protect our data,” she says. “That's why we conduct independent third-party audits. We understand what their application development process is like, where their data is stored and how it's protected. I need it.”
Results of modernizing applications required in medical care
Healthcare IT teams must keep usability in mind when upgrading systems. “You can create the most secure application, but if it's very difficult to use, people will find ways to circumvent the controls,” Stone says.
For example, complex password requirements can increase security, but only if used properly, he says. “How many people can adapt to that, especially in the healthcare industry where people are so busy and need to move quickly?”
Organizations must also consider visibility. Chauthai recalls working with a healthcare organization that had adopted a more modern platform after realizing that outdated legacy systems were unintentionally exposing data in certain areas. The old system's infrastructure was rigid, making updates a slow and difficult process.
Discover: Application modernization strategies create a roadmap to better healthcare outcomes.
Through application modernization, the organization has switched to a “plug and play” model, Chauthai says. “We can now change our security controls as needed, but the biggest benefit is increased visibility and compliance.” In the event of a data breach, IT teams can track when and where data was accessed. can.
Additionally, Stone says it's important to build resilient architectures so that organizations can quickly recover in the event of a breach. He points out that Pure Storage's safe-mode snapshots create copies of valuable data sets that malicious actors cannot delete.
As cybercriminals continue to use more sophisticated tools to target healthcare systems, Chautai says there are long-term benefits to using application modernization in tandem with cybersecurity. “The cost of a data breach needs to be considered holistically,” he says. “There's a loss of trust, not only from the economic side and the loss of productivity, but also from a patient perspective. That damage can last for a long time.”
