Telemedicine security is one of the most significant concerns as the world embraced telehealth solutions to offer safe and secure care to patients amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. However, data security in telemedicine might have taken a backseat during the initial phases-given the need for rapid adoption and implementation of telemedicine solutions in healthcare. Though the healthcare leaders were quick to integrate virtual healthcare solutions, they knew they needed to build a robust telehealth software security architecture to ensure maximum telemedicine privacy and security of sensitive patient information.

Telehealth Security Best Practices

While the telehealth software security architecture is huge and complex—requiring a nuanced and comprehensive approach—to achieve the holistic benefits of telehealth privacy and security, here we provide a three-point checklist that hospitals and Practices can adopt—to bolster their telehealth security framework.

• 1. A Proactive Approach to Network Security. Modern cyberattacks are more pervasive due to their complex infrastructure and intricate strategies. They are built at more sophisticated levels—with broader capabilities to unlock new ways of breaking through the cyber walls of conventional security structure. To mitigate the impact, telehealth software solution providers need to take a more proactive approach—that requires multi-levels of protection in detecting and preventing malware attacks, Patient data and other intellectual property theft. Healthcare organizations can integrate bundled solutions such as anti-malware and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) to recognize and protect systems from suspicious attacks in real-time.
• 2. End-to-end Encryption. Data encryption is the final level of protection that supports cyber-defense. Even if the cyber attacker penetrates the perimeter and extracts data, it will be of no use when it is encrypted. It is best to protect massive applications that run on cloud instances using a single master key from a key master service. Encryptions are usually done on internal servers that host the database (DB). However, you can add another layer of protection by encrypting database instances at rest, their backups and other related information.
• 3. Choosing the Ideal Operating Systems. Microsoft Windows and Linux are universally accepted operating systems. Cyber attackers are increasingly using OS-based techniques to penetrate the loopholes of unpatched systems. To prevent OS-based attacks and data thefts, the Hospital data security teams can leverage the capabilities of hardened operating systems to add multiple levels of protection to critical data. Hardened operating systems prevent vulnerabilities of OS administrative with security bundles, thereby strengthening healthcare data security.

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References :

American Medical Association (AMA) , The US Department of Homeland Security , The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , HITRUST