How to Prevent Cyber Attacks in Healthcare

Hospitals are particularly vulnerable given the amount of medical devices and systems they use. "The average US hospital has over 30,000 connected medical devices and endpoints, many of which are running vulnerable, unpatched, and outdated software," Cohen says.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted these vulnerabilities, as all efforts concentrated on caring for large numbers of patients, coupled with implementing new technologies very quickly, such as virtual consultations, and leaving far less time to consider the security implications.

In the long term, Cohen says that investing in automation is vital to prevent cyber-attacks. "With the massive number of devices and endpoints in even a small hospital, security teams cannot hope to achieve an adequate level of security manually. Specialized tools designed for IoT and medical devices will provide security teams with constant monitoring and crucial early detection capabilities that will allow hospitals to mitigate and isolate potential security breaches.