Cybersecurity solutions firm Palo Alto Networks addresses emerging concerns on healthcare data security amid a global health crisis. Leveraging machine learning (ML), the company’s ensures more visibility and prevention in meeting privacy requirements of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT).

The move hopes to help improve data security and patient safety while meeting the needs of both IT teams and biomedical engineering teams. Internet of Things (IoT), while presents many benefits, also poses new cybersecurity risks, especially in healthcare.

“The Internet of Medical Things has the potential to improve healthcare, save lives, and bring massive savings. But if not properly secured, these same devices can pose huge risks,” said Anand Oswal, senior vice president and general manager, Firewall as a Platform, Palo Alto Networks. “Our vision is to give healthcare organizations complete visibility, in-depth risk analysis, and built-in prevention so they can get the maximum benefits from this transformative technology while reducing risks to patients and their data.”

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According to a recent report from Palo Alto Networks’Unit 42, 83% of medical imaging devices are running on unsupported operating systems, making them potential avenues for attackers. Attacks on medical devices like these can potentially disrupt the quality of care and allow attackers to steal patient data.

Patient care

Palo Alto Networks IoT Security is designed to ensure Healthcare Delivery Organizations (HDOs) can realize the benefits of IoT for patient care without sacrificing security. The company claims it is the industry’s only solution to use ML and crowd-sourced telemetry to quickly and accurately profile all devices on the network even those never seen before. IoT Security also offers ML-powered policy recommendations to reduce manual effort; intrusion prevention to block exploits; sandboxing to detect and prevent IoT malware, and URL and DNS security to stop IoT attacks via the web.

The company ensures that the Manufacturer Disclosure Statement for Medical Device Security (MDS2) documents allow medical device manufacturers to disclose the security-related features of their devices, allowing for deeper vulnerability analysis, tuned anomaly detection, and specific recommended policies.

Operational Insights give biomedical and clinical engineering teams visibility into how, when and where medical devices on their network are being used, allowing teams to optimize resource allocation, improve patient care, make capital planning decisions and reduce maintenance costs.

The addition of Expanded IoMT Discovery in many other medical-specific protocols App-ID now enables expanded discovery and security for unique IoMT devices and healthcare applications.