Overview of Network Security in Healthcare Industry

This report highlights the importance of network technologies in the healthcare industry, its advantages, disadvantages and implications. It discusses the future of network technologies in the healthcare industry, possible threats and how they can be overcome using different techniques.

Running head: OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Executive Summary:
Network technologies are one of the most widely used technologies in the world today in
the different industries. There are different kinds of network technologies, which can be wired, non-
wired as well as mobile technologies that are being implemented in the different companies. The
following report will highlight the different aspects of network technologies in the healthcare
industry, its advantages, disadvantages and implications. The following paragraphs will discuss the
future of network technologies in the healthcare industry, which is very promising, along with the
possible threats and how they can be overcome using different techniques

2OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................3
Discussion:.............................................................................................................................................3
Healthcare network architecture:.....................................................................................................3
- Routers:.................................................................................................................................3
- Firewalls:................................................................................................................................3
- Switches:................................................................................................................................4
- Servers:..................................................................................................................................4
Recent developments in healthcare networks:.................................................................................4
Literature Gap:......................................................................................................................................4
Methodologies for securing networks and threats they address:.....................................................4
Importance of security in healthcare networks:...............................................................................5
Three potential issues in healthcare network security:.....................................................................5
1. Data getting lost or stolen:.................................................................................................5
2. Misuse by insiders:.............................................................................................................5
3. Unintentional actions:........................................................................................................5
Mitigation of insider misuse:.............................................................................................................6
Conclusion:............................................................................................................................................6
References:............................................................................................................................................7

3OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Introduction:
Network technologies are predominantly used by the different industries in today’s world in
order to securely store and transmit their data in a secure network. They make use of different
network devices like the router, firewalls, different ports and switches in order to form the network.
These are either wired, non-wired or mobile networks. Recently the healthcare industry has started
implementing network technologies to improve security features within the industry as well as to
make operations faster and easier. Security is one of the prime aspects within the healthcare
industry because of the importance of the patient’s medical health records and confidential
information for the doctors. Hence, it is one of the most successful applications of the network
technologies.
This report will highlight the importance of network technologies in the healthcare industry
and what is its future in this industry. The advantages and disadvantages including its threats in the
healthcare industry will also be discussed. By the end of the report the reader will able to
understand the different aspects of implementing network technologies in the healthcare industry
and the possible options of eliminating the threats associated to it.
Discussion:
Healthcare network architecture:
In the healthcare industry, there are doctors, nurses, patient and other professionals who are
involved in the different sectors. For instance in a hospital there are people from different spheres
who are working together at the same time. There are different kinds of information that the
doctor’s need, which in turn can also be, needed by the nurses for ta king care of the patients. There
are also administrative tasks within a hospital, which again also needs data to be stored or
transmitted within the hospital. All these operations related to secure data storage and transmission
within the network of employees within the hospital needs a secure computerized network, which is
generally handled by a dedicated admin [1]. This secure network architecture is made using certain
specialized components of a secure network namely: routers, firewalls, switches as well as servers.
- Routers: They are specialized network devices that transmit data packets from a particular
network to another, for example from the billing department within the hospital to the
medical department, which are accessed by doctors and nurses.
- Firewalls: They act as protection shields that prevent the computers from being hacked and
protects the computers from malicious phishing attacks. Security is of utmost important in
the healthcare industry since they store critical and confidential information about the

4OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
particular hospital, medical records of patients as well as personal details of doctors and
nurses [3].
- Switches: Switches are used to channelize the data coming from multiple input ports to the
desired output port, which can then be redirected to the intended destination. For example,
data coming from the doctors in the medical department of a hospital is not supposed to
reach the network of the parking lot in the hospital, which stores information on visitor’s car
parking and related information. This is where switches play an important role in
channelizing the data.
- Servers: Servers are the centralized computers/programs that manages the rest of the
computers (hosts) in a particular network and sends or receives data packets from them.
They manage the access to the different resources, which are centralized.
Recent developments in healthcare networks:
In recent times, network technologies have made a great impact in the healthcare industry.
One such important network technology is known as Internet of things (IOT) which is one of the
most widely used network technologies in the healthcare industry [10]. Recently, an article stated
that one of the hospitals in Boston has started using internet of medical things, which protects the
newborns. It also allow the nurses to receive instant updates whenever the vital signs of the NICA
patients change. Hospitals have also started using the internet of things to optimize workflow of
medical surgeries and alert families once the surgeries are over, in order to boost their moral spirits
thereby, improving patient satisfaction. Doctors are also now making use of IOT to gather complete
medical history of patients thereby saving a lot of time and making tasks smoother [4].
Literature Gap:
Earlier it has been found that different reports have been written and researches carried out
in the past to identify the applications and threats associated to networks in the healthcare industry.
However not much of an information is available regarding the techniques to mitigate the threats or
what exactly network technologies in the healthcare industry mean. All these aspects will be
covered in this report.
Methodologies for securing networks and threats they address:
One of the techniques used by network engineers is known as network address translation
(NAT) in which is a technique of remapping a particular IP address space into another, by
modification of information on network address during data transmission through a router [2]. It
cats as firewall, which can block unwanted websites from opening up in browser. NAT can also be
implemented as an antivirus programme in the computer [12].

5OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Importance of security in healthcare networks:
It is of utmost importance that the healthcare networks are secure since they contain
different kinds of confidential and private data. They can be personal information of the doctors,
nurses, patients, and financial as well as legal documents pertaining to the hospital. Often the
networks also store important medical documents and journals, which are copyrights, should not be
accessible to the outside world, and should be limited only to the hospital administration. Leakage of
such data can also pose great threats for the healthcare institutions and cause the industry to be
victims of ethically answerable questions at times [11]. Different devices used in the healthcare
industry like the MRI scanners, microscopes and ventilators are mostly computers that store
important data, which are easily accessible by hackers, therefore vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which
in turn can cause medical reports and other important information to be manipulated [5].
Three potential issues in healthcare network security:
1. Data getting lost or stolen: In a recent research, it has been found that nearly 46% of the
healthcare incidents related to security are due to loss and theft. The main reason for this
being most of the times the employees in the hospitals are not much careful about their
personal devices like laptops, cell phones, or even workstations that consist of critical
important information about the patients. The sensitive devices are also not encrypted so
that in case of any hacks or hijacks, the patient and hospital data remain unaffected. This is a
major issue in the healthcare networks today [6].
2. Misuse by insiders: This is yet another concern in the security of the healthcare networks. In
the year 2013 around 15% of security related incidents occurred because of insider misuse in
the healthcare industry in the United States. In a recent study, it was reported that in in the
healthcare industry many outsiders are often solely recruited in hospitals just to steal
patient information to commit tax frauds and identity thefts [7].
3. Unintentional actions: Some unintentional human actions can also cause security issues in
healthcare networks. For example, a hospital stuff in the billing counter accidentally puts a
patient’s information in the envelope of another patient at the time of doing mass mailing.
Improper and poor maintenance of the hospitals website can also leak patient information
to the outside world, which can be available online. In addition, medical institutions has
decommissioned the usage of computers without properly removing the earlier patient’s
information causing data breach [8].

6OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
Mitigation of insider misuse:
In order to reduce or stop misuse of resources by internal employees, an audit trail should
be created in each of the computers and other network devices within the healthcare hospital. This
will keep a track of all the employees who have accessed the critical information on the different
systems including the servers. Healthcare institutions should be knowing who accessed what
information and when was it accessed. In addition, data exfiltration should be kept under a watch.
Products that prevent data loss should be made mandatory in the healthcare industry in case the
patient’s data needs to be carried outside the hospital premises [9].
Conclusion:
From the above report, it can be concluded that in spite of its advantages, healthcare
networks need a lot of development in order to mitigate the threats associated to it. Although it
eases the tasks of the ID admins within the healthcare institutions, there are different threats, which
should be taken care at the same time. Patient data as well as the sensitive data within the
healthcare institutions should be stored in encrypted format so that there is no threat of data theft,
and there is no questions of ethical issues that the hospitals have to face.

7OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY
References:
[1]An IoT-Aware Architecture for Smart Healthcare Systems, 2nd ed. IEEE, 2015, pp. 515-526.
[2]Network address translation. United States, 2018.
[3]VMPlanner: Optimizing virtual machine placement and traffic flow routing to reduce network
power costs in cloud data centers, 1st ed. 2018, pp. 179-196.
[4]Wireless sensor networks: a survey on recent developments and potential synergies, 68th ed.
2018, pp. 1-48. Internet of everything (IoE) exploiting organisational inside threats: Global network
of smart devices (GNSD). IEEE, 2015.
[5]Security and privacy for mobile healthcare networks: from a quality of protection perspective.
IEEE, 2018, pp. 104-112.
[6]A Secure IoT-Based Healthcare System With Body Sensor Networks, 4th ed. 2018, pp. 10288 -
10299.
[7]"Survey of main challenges (security and privacy) in wireless body area networks for healthcare
applications", Egyptian Informatics Journal, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 113-122, 2018.
[8]SoK: Security and Privacy in Implantable Medical Devices and Body Area Networks 2014 IEEE
Symposium on Security and Privacy. Berkeley, CA, USA: IEEE, 2018, pp. 524-539.
[9]Mitigating vulnerabilities and threats for patient-centric healthcare systems in low income
developing countries. IEEE, 2014.
[10]Internet of everything (IoE) exploiting organisational inside threats: Global network of smart
devices (GNSD). IEEE, 2015.
[11]Interactive and Iterative Behavioral Model, System, and Method for Detecting Fraud, Waste, and
Abuse. 2018.
[12]Method and apparatus for supporting communications between a computing device within a
network and an external computing device. 2018.

8OVERVIEW OF NETWORK SECURITY