How SAFE Aligns with the Health Industry Cybersecurity Strategic Plan

Continuous risk assessment and a risk-based approach answer the call to reset data protection in healthcare

By Jacqueline Lebo

Healthcare is under attack. And it’s time to change the game. The Health Industry Cybersecurity Strategic Plan (HICSP) 2024-2029 is here, and it’s not just a set of guidelines – it’s a call to action. We’re talking about shifting from scrambling to secure, building unbreakable digital defenses, and ensuring patient data is treated with the ironclad respect it deserves. Ready to lead the charge?

What Is the Health Industry Cybersecurity Strategic Plan (HICSP) and Why Does it Matter?

The plan is a comprehensive framework developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC), a partnership between the healthcare industry and government to identify and mitigate cyber threats to health data and research, systems, manufacturing and patient care. It outlines a five-year strategy to enhance cybersecurity resilience across the healthcare sector.

The Challenges Healthcare Faces

Healthcare organizations are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks, driven by the valuable data they hold and the critical services they provide. The HICSP highlights the urgent need to address these challenges. As the report states, the healthcare sector faces several cybersecurity challenges due to “the increasing use of digital health technology, the portability of health data, and a shortage of cybersecurity professionals.” These challenges include:

Ransomware attacks

We’ve seen hospitals forced to divert ambulances and cancel critical surgeries due to ransomware attacks locking down electronic health records (EHRs). The report highlights the increasing frequency of these attacks disrupting patient care, crippling healthcare systems, and causing prolonged operational downtime.

Vulnerabilities in digital infrastructure 

Consider the risk of a vulnerability in a connected infusion pump. An attacker could manipulate dosage settings, potentially endangering patient lives. The report’s emphasis on infrastructure resilience directly addresses the reality that vulnerabilities within our digital backbone can lead to treatment delays, data corruption, and even potentially fatal results.

Complexity of the connected healthcare ecosystem

We’re dealing with a web of interconnected systems: medical devices, EHRs, telehealth platforms, and third-party vendors. A single vendor with weak security can become a pivot point for attackers to compromise our entire network, highlighting the urgent need for robust third-party risk management and unified visibility. The plan urges industry participants to consider the “entire regulated and unregulated value chain” at risk. 

Attacks against public health organizations 

Imagine a public health department’s disease surveillance system being compromised during a pandemic. This would hinder our ability to track outbreaks, allocate resources, and implement effective public health measures. 

Evolving technology

For example, the rapid adoption of AI-driven diagnostic tools and IoT medical devices is outpacing our ability to secure them. 

How HICSP Answers These Challenges

The HICSP doesn’t just acknowledge the rising tide of cyber threats; it launches a targeted counteroffensive against the sector’s most pressing vulnerabilities:

Combating Critical Infrastructure Disruption

We saw the catastrophic impact of the Change Healthcare attack, when pharmacies were crippled, and patients were denied vital medications. The HICSP mandates robust resilience strategies to prevent such disruptions, ensuring patient access to critical care remains uninterrupted.

Fortifying Patient Data Against Relentless Attacks

The HICSP demands stringent data protection measures, directly addressing the challenge of ransomware and data breaches. It pushes for proactive security controls to protect the sensitive patient information that is so often targeted.

Adapting to the Relentless Evolution of Cyber Threats 

The HICSP is designed to be agile, providing frameworks and guidance to stay ahead of  evolving threats, and specifically address the potential manipulation of devices like infusion pumps.

Building a United Front Through Collaboration

The HICSP encourages information sharing and threat intelligence exchange, enabling healthcare entities to collectively strengthen their defense of the interconnected healthcare ecosystem. 

Ensuring Rigorous Regulatory Compliance

The HICSP reinforces the importance of compliance with regulations like HIPAA, not as a mere formality, but as a fundamental pillar of patient data protection. It provides a framework for organizations to demonstrate adherence and build trust, while directly addressing the issue of cyber threats to the entire system.

Analyzing top cyber risk scenarios on the SAFE One platform

How SAFE Can Help

The SAFE One platform helps organizations measure, manage, and mitigate cyber risk. It offers a comprehensive view of an organization’s security posture by quantifying cyber risk in real-time. There is a powerful alignment between the SAFE platform and the objectives outlined in the HICSP. Here’s how SAFE can help healthcare organizations navigate the future of cybersecurity:

Quantifying and Managing Risk

SAFE provides a real-time, unified view of cyber risk, empowering organizations to quantify their risk exposure and prioritize remediation efforts. This directly addresses the challenges of ransomware attacks by providing a risk in a way that can prioritize the EHR and other critical systems.

Enhancing Critical Infrastructure Resilience

The platform’s ability to map and assess the security posture of critical assets, including medical devices and network infrastructure, is crucial for protecting essential healthcare services. For example, this helps to discover and manage vulnerabilities in devices like infusion pumps.

SAFE One supports 60+ integrations to discover and onboard assets and their respective signals

Protecting Patient Data

SAFE’s risk quantification and assessment capabilities help organizations understand the potential impact of data breaches and prioritize security controls to protect sensitive patient data, and protect patient portals from third party vulnerabilities.

SAFE One supports 60+ integrations to discover and onboard assets and their respective signals

Streamlining GRC Programs

By automating risk assessments and control monitoring, SAFE helps organizations streamline audits and demonstrate adherence to HIPAA and other regulations, and helps organizations keep track of all of the regulations that are needed for the healthcare industry.

Improving Third-Party Risk Management

SAFE provides the tools to monitor the risk posture of third party vendors, enabling cybersecurity teams to prioritize security controls facing the vendors with the most potential impact .For most hospitals, EPIC is a critical third party with extensive business continuity and back up recovery capabilities but organizations cannot say the same thing for fourth parties like Change Healthcare.

Strengthening Workforce Resilience

By providing a clear view of where security weaknesses are, SAFE allows security teams to focus their training efforts and remediation efforts on the areas of highest risk reduction. The platform’s dynamic capabilities monitors threat actors for the industry and allows individuals to be on top of their riskiest threats and dynamically align operational work daily with risks being tracked by top executives all in one platform.

The Bottom Line

The HICSP 2024-2029 demands continuous risk assessment and a risk-based approach, vital in healthcare’s rapidly evolving tech landscape. SAFE uniquely scales to meet these demands with automated, real-time risk quantification, unified visibility across complex systems, and proactive remediation. By adopting SAFE, organizations not only fulfill HICSP requirements but build a future-proof cybersecurity strategy, ensuring patient safety and trust in an increasingly digital healthcare world.

Learn more about SAFE’s cyber risk management solutions for the healthcare industry

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