Survey Finds Most Hospitals Concerned About Mobile Device Security
A new report conducted by SpyGlass found that most hospitals are concerned about the security of their mobile devices. In the report, titled “Point of Care Communications for Nursing“. it was discovered that 82% of hospitals that responded expressed concerns that they’re mobile device deployments were not adequately protected to address increased risk of cyber security attacks.
Personal devices that the staff brought themselves were a major concern among hospital IT staff. These devices, without a proper BYOD system in place, lack adequate password protection and security software, often rely on unsecured SMS messaging for clinical communications which often include patient health information, and widely use public wi-fi and cellular networks that could easily compromise their data.
“Smartphone technology has really taken on a serious role as to how it fits into clinical communication, but every time you integrate systems, there are points where the data is in the clear, and where it is vulnerable,” said Gregg Malkary, founder and managing director of Spyglass.
The hospitals surveyed were also worried about their own administered devices used by nurses, ancillary healthcare professionals, and other mobile hospital workers. “Despite increased investments in mobile device management solutions and secure text messaging solutions, cyber criminals have become more sophisticated and knowledgeable about the capabilities and vulnerabilities of existing security products, and the strategies and tools used by hospital IT to detect a potential intrusion,” said Gregg Malkary, Spyglass Consulting Group.
There are regulations, such as HIPAA privacy rules, instilled on hospitals to guard and protect patient information. This information includes patient names, birth dates, social security numbers, diagnoses, tests, physicians’ names, and insurance information. If a hospital does experience a privacy breach, it can be fined upwards of $1.5 million per incident and will be required to alert local media outlets. That’s a pretty good reason to keep a lock on those mobile devices! As a matter of fact, a quarter of all data breaches originate from mobile devices. Yikes!
