From Rapid to Robust: Why Healthcare is Focused on Telehealth Security

When the COVID-19 pandemic prompted strict restrictions across the country, healthcare systems scrambled to move much of their operations to a telehealth model, in line with safety protocols. But even as providers were rapidly rolling out new telehealth solutions, they knew they needed to do so in a way that didn’t compromise sensitive patient information.

“We’re all aware of how many new ransomware attacks have occurred in the past 18 months around the world,” says Aloha McBride, global health leader for EY. “These types of attacks have accelerated as health systems quickly adopted new technologies, which was sometimes more about speed to take care of patients rather than security, due to COVID-19. There is no doubt these capabilities around telehealth made a huge difference for access to patients.”

The pace and scale of telehealth offerings over the past year were certainly “an incredible area of rapid evolution,” she says, but cybercriminals targeting the industry are also sophisticated and looking for any opportunity to attack. As such, organizations are turning to solutions for telehealth security, relying on the robust features from the platforms themselves, with support from multifactor authentication and virtual desktop infrastructure.