The Joint Public Health Cybersecurity Task Group, the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council and the Healthcare and Public Health Sector Joint Cyber Security Task Group are evaluating the current state of preparedness within this vital subsector to identify opportunities to enhance its resilience to evolving increase cyber threats.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The anonymous survey, conducted in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin, takes about 15 minutes to complete.
The findings will inform grant funding recommendations and shape policy for the public health sector, said Bob Bastani, senior cybersecurity advisor for critical infrastructure protection for the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, and Dr. Leanne Field, HSCC Public Health Subsector Chair and Executive Director. committee member of the Cybersecurity Working Group and faculty at UT Austin.
The survey asks, among other things: If a cyber event were to interrupt the health department’s normal processes, what would be the most damaging loss of public health services to the community?
“The insights gleaned from a broad range of public health officials, decision makers, practitioners, and information technology leaders in SLTT communities are critical in informing our collective cybersecurity strategy,” they wrote in their report. announcement.
High levels of participation in the survey are crucial, says Greg Garcia, executive director of the HSCC Cyber Working Group.
“In light of the increasing cyber threats facing the sector, this voluntary survey provides a crucial opportunity to evaluate current preparedness levels and identify areas in need of improvement,” he said in his report. correspondence to health officials posted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials on its website.
Bastani and Field also asked for help promoting the online surveywhich will remain open to public health leaders and practitioners at all levels until Monday, December 2.
THE BIG TREND
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ASPR’s parent agency, is centralizing cybersecurity resources provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and other federal agencies across the healthcare and public health sectors to address cybersecurity threats that have reached epidemic proportions.
Public health agencies are far from immune to healthcare cyberattacks, as government agencies are targeted by cyber adversaries seeking financial gain, service disruption, or both.
In June, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said it was a phishing attack February 19-20, where a hacker obtained the login details of 53 GGD employees. The brief attack compromised the personal information including first and last names, dates of birth, diagnoses, prescriptions, Social Security numbers and financial information of more than 200,000 people, the province said.
Public health cybersecurity preparedness could also be jeopardized by the rise of digital tools, such as artificial intelligence.
“What happens if a chatbot from a respected institution starts spreading disinformation during a future public health emergency?” pondered Brian R. Spisak, a consultant, researcher and educator on digital transformation in healthcare, in a June op-ed Healthcare IT news.
While Spisak wrote about the potential dangers of the World Health Organization’s generative AI chatbot, which Sarah introduced in April, AI and cybersecurity are closely intertwined, and using AI technologies for public health comes with risks.
Technology risk management and patient safety threats “are not mutually exclusive, they are mutually exclusive,” noted Sunil Dadlani, Atlantic Health System’s chief information and digital officer, at the HIMSS cybersecurity forum in September.
ON THE RECORD
“Because we understand that many SLTT communities may not have previously engaged with these types of initiatives, we are doing our best to encourage broad participation from the public health community,” Bastani and Field said in announcing the study.
Andrea Fox is editor-in-chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.