Virta Labs Blog

Cybersecurity was a big theme at this year's HIMSS expo. Beckers' summary is nice.

On the one hand, everybody wants their healthcare organizations to act faster on cybersecurity. The drumbeat keeps getting louder, and everyone hopes they won't be the next to be in the news. Some analysts say the reputational cost of a breach can be ten times the size of initial fines over an uncomfortable period of years.

On the other hand, organizations of every size are having a hard time getting started. The number one reason? Budget. Security ROI arguments are famously hard to make, because what's the monetary value of something bad not happening, when it might not have happened anyway, for free? In the battle of abstract versus concrete, concrete always wins.

Topics: Medical Device Security, Healthcare IT

This week FDA released several crucial guidance documents that are strongly relevant to cybersecurity. In regulatory fashion, the documents have very different names and are easy to tell apart, making it easy to talk about them at the same time.

Topics: Medical Device Security, IoT, Connected Medical Devices

It's been an amazingly busy year for medical device security. In 2015, the average hospital had not heard of ransomware. (We warned of the hospital malware onslaught in 2012!) In 2016, the hospital C-suites began asking us, "Could that happen here??" after neighboring health systems were taken offline for days by malware. Duh, yes. The important question is how will you ensure that hospital operations continue to remain available to deliver patient care despite legacy capital equipment, cybersecurity risks, and the shifting threat landscape.

Topics: Healthcare Cybersecurity, Ransomware, Medical Device Security, Legacy Medical Devices, Asset Management, Enterprise Risk Management, Inventory Management, Clinical Security, CMMS

The healthcare world is abuzz about potential vulnerabilities in cardiac implants. It seems that every few months, hackers publish yet another attack paper. We know the hospital C-suites are concerned about it, because protecting health delivery organizations is our business. The good news is that there are cost-effective ways for healthcare delivery organizations to manage many of the cybersecurity risks against implantable medical devices.

Topics: Healthcare Cybersecurity, Medical Device Security, Internet of Things / IoT

How is your health system recognizing October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Last year, we were invited to speak in an exclusive webinar for clinical engineers and IT staff at the 12 hospitals within the University of California Health System. This year, we help hospitals recognize National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in two ways. First, we co-authored a commentary in Modern Healthcare with our colleagues from AAMI, UMHS, and BIDMC on why hospitals need better cybersecurity, not more fear. Second, we decided to make a live webinar available to any health system! To learn more, sign up for our Halloween Medical Device Security webinar. 

Topics: Medical Device Security, Healthcare IoT, Healthcare IT, Clinical Information Security, Connected Medical Devices

Topics: Medical Device Security, Clinical Engineering, Healthcare IT, Asset Discovery, Medical Device Risk Scoring, Shadow IT, Vulnerability Scanning, Clinical Databases, Medical Device Risk Assessments

This blog post is about the long awaited fact sheet from HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) on ransomware, and why you should take this one seriously in terms of having an accurate inventory of networked medical devices to reduce the probability of enjoying the pleasure of reporting a breach to OCR.

Topics: Healthcare Cybersecurity, Ransomware, Medical Device Security, Legacy Medical Devices, Asset Management, Enterprise Risk Management, Inventory Management, Clinical Security, CMMS

Ransomware is just the tip of the iceberg.

As we roll out BlueFlow™, we wanted to take some time to share two quick graphics with you that we've used to help us frame our conversations with healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs).

Topics: Healthcare Cybersecurity, Ransomware, Medical Device Security, Breaches, Network Assets, Enterprise Security, Network Security, Network Scanning, Inventory Discovery, Vulnerability Management, Downtime

Last week, the Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) closed the public comment period on the draft guidelines for Postmarket Management of Cybersecurity in Medical Devices.

Topics: FDA, Healthcare Cybersecurity, Ransomware, Medical Device Security, Clinical Security, Clinical Information Systems, Medical Device ePHI

Topics: Healthcare Cybersecurity, NSF SBIR, Medical Device Security, Healthcare IoT, Clinical Engineering, Connected Medical Devices